Family Studies

Donald Shields points out that he and John F. Cragan, a communications professor with the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, began the study in late 2003, months before it became public that his sister was the subject of a federal probe. He admits, however, that the investigation of his sister intensified his work. "There's no doubt that we started working on it more heavily," he says. "I will say that of the 375 people, she's the only one that I'm related to. So if you want to throw her out, there's 374 cases."

Donald Shields defends the study's inclusion of politicians who were only testifying as part of the investigations. "We noticed the harms of it if you were reported in the popular press," he says. "It started seeping away your ability to raise funds, and other people didn't want to hang out with you, regardless of whether you were guilty or innocent or a suspect or a target or whatever."

Katheryn Shields and Cardarella included what looks like a press release about the study as an exhibit in a March 16 court filing to dismiss the charges against them. The filing claims that the federal government zeroed in on Shields for being "an outspoken, sometimes controversial Democrat, and because she was campaigning for Mayor of Kansas City after serving 12 years as Jackson County Executive."

In an April 6 response, the U.S. Attorney's Office took the extraordinary step of attempting to debunk the study, calling it "a partisan-driven hatchet job" that was published only online. "Shame on Professor Shields for passing his work off as a 'study' and shame on the defendants for doing the same," Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip Eugene Porter wrote.

Donald Shields and Cragan worried that their research would be misunderstood. "Our fear is that this research will be dismissed as political itself," they wrote in a 2005 paper. "If that is the case, it is a shame."