Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx catapulted in to the national spotlight when, in defiance of then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago Police Department, she single-handedly decided to drop the criminal case against actor and hate-crime hoaxer Jussie Smollett.
Foxx’s collusion with Tina Chen, the former chief of staff to Michelle Obama deployed by the wealthy Smollett camp, proved pointless thanks to a successful indictment charged by a special prosecutor. But the public rightly grew terrified that Foxx would appease another celebrity criminal case under her control: the sex crimes alleged against R. Kelly.
The public is correct to fear Foxx, as the data proves the Smollett case was no anomaly. Foxx simply loves letting criminals, including rapists and murderers, off scot-free.
Foxx dropped all charges against 30% of felony defendants, a staggering 54% increase from her predecessor’s rate of 19.4%, according to an investigation by the Chicago Tribune. Although Foxx claims she did so to focus her office’s resources away from nonviolent crime, that’s simply not what the data proves.
“For the three-year period analyzed, Foxx’s office dropped 8.1% of homicide cases, compared with 5.3% under [former Cook County State’s Attorney Anita] Alvarez,” writes the Chicago Tribune. “Under Foxx, the office dropped 9.5% of felony sex crime cases; the rate was 6.5% for Alvarez.”
The investigation continued, “Foxx’s office also increased the rate of dropped cases for aggravated battery and for aggravated battery with a firearm. And under Foxx, the percentage of cases dropped for defendants accused of aggravated battery of a police officer more than doubled, from 3.9% to 8.1%.”
The share of domestic battery cases dropped by Foxx also increased by nearly 10%, and the number of failure to register as a sex offender cases that were dropped by Foxx nearly tripled.
Now, as rioters loot and shoot Chicago into submission, Smollett special prosecutor Dan Webb has published his findings into Foxx’s handling of the race huckster’s cases, announcing he found evidence “that may rise to the level of a violation of legal ethics by State’s Attorney Foxx” and other Cook County prosecutors “relating to false and/or misleading public statements made about the prosecution” and evidence proving “substantial abuses of discretion.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has come under significant fire for the city’s weak response to Chicago’s rioters. But no amount of force and control levied by the mayor’s office and law enforcement means anything if the feckless Foxx continues to let violent criminals go free.
Smollett was just a sample of the vacuum of justice that Foxx has brought to Chicago. The serious violence destroying the city’s streets won’t get any better until voters throw her out of office.
