(Credit: Medill Innocence Project, screenshot)

E-mails between former Northwestern University professor David Protess and students must be provided to the courts, the Chicago Tribune reported .

As iMediaEthics has written, Protess, who until recently ran Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism’s Innocence Project, and his students in that project, looked into possible “wrongful convictions.”

The case of Anthony McKinney landed the school and the project members in court, as prosecutors allege that the students worked “as investigators in a criminal proceeding” and not journalists.  In this most recent twist, the judge, Diane Cannon, stated that the st udents “worked at the direction of Anthony McKiney’s attorneys,” so their e-mailed notes and findings must be provided to the prosecutors.

The university has ten days to appeal, according to the Tribune.

Protess denied that the students worked for McKinney’s attorneys, claiming that the students looked into the charges “for two years before there was any involvement with defense attorneys.”