Month: March 2022

The City has a new Detention Facilities Oversight Board, and an aldermanic panel has approved the nine initial appointees. They will deal with complaints at the City Justice Center (CJC).

Complaints like these:

Complaints that have led to a recently-filed class-action lawsuit alleging “violent and systemic abuse” at the CJC.

The unfortunate reality is that this oversight board is really just an example of a common political ruse. When politicians, like City mayor Tishaura Jones, must deal with a genuine problem, instead of directly addressing it, they make it appear they are addressing it. They form a committee of well-meaning people, these people take a lot of time looking into the problem and discussing it, then they make suggestions that of course need to be carefully considered, etc. This all takes a lot of time. A lot of time when nothing really changes. But, it demonstrates to the politician’s constituents that they are taking the problem “seriously.” It permits these politicians to deflect criticism about how nothing significant is really being done to deal with the problem.

The sad truth is that the formation of the oversight board is essentially an admission that the problems at the CJC are not being directly addressed.

There are numerous examples of well-run and humane pretrial detention facilities in our country. The models of how to do it right already exist. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. If you do what the other successful pretrial detention centers are doing, you too will have a successful pretrial detention center. It doesn’t take an oversight committee to look at what they are doing, see which of those things the CJC is not doing, and then begin doing those things. And, if you’re doing things those successful pretrial detention centers aren’t doing, stop doing those things. It’s not that complicated; it’s not rocket science.

If the mayor was genuinely determined to make the CJC better, she could hire a superintendent that was knowledgeable and experienced in running one of these model pretrial detention centers and have them come in and make the changes needed. She could hire consultants that have a proven track-record of turning around other problem detention centers. She could take direct action to solve the problem.

Or, she could do nothing but sound good doing it.

Kim Foxx, Chicago’s “reform prosecutor,” has written an op-ed piece in the Chicago Sun-Times explaining how the prosecution of the Jussie Smollett case was an injustice. Her complaint is that “[r]ather than working collaboratively to stem rising crime or free the wrongly convicted, a small group of people hijacked the judicial system to enact what is best described as mob justice.” She went on to describe the prosecution and sentencing of Smollett as the actions of a “kangaroo court.”

While I agree that there are more important concerns facing Chicago than the prosecution of a celebrity for poorly enacting an attempted lynching hoax, that case was hardly an example of “mob justice” or a “kangaroo court.” After all, a sitting grand jury did indict Smollett, a special prosecutor was appointed by a judge after Ms. Foxx recused herself, and Smollett received top-notch criminal defense. This was a textbook example of how the criminal justice system is supposed to work.

You may be wondering, if that’s all true, what’s Ms. Foxx’s real beef? She believes that she was deprived of her prosecutorial discretion, i.e., the authority of the elected prosecutor to decide where to focus their office’s resources and whether or how to enforce, or not to enforce, the law against an individual. In other words, she should have gotten to decide whether or not to prosecute Smollett in the first place and not some “mob.”

Normally, of course, as the elected prosecutor, she would have had that discretion. But she lost that through her inappropriate actions: while Smollett was being investigated by police, Ms. Foxx was busy text-messaging with his family and offering to help them. Later, after this became public, she recused herself from the case and tried to appoint her assistant in her stead. However, a judge ruled (against her) that she couldn’t give the case to someone else in her office because there was a statutory mandate requiring the appointment of a special prosecutor in cases where the State’s Attorney is recused. And so the case went to a special prosecutor, and he did not see the case the same way as Ms. Foxx.

That the case went to a special prosecutor who decided to actually prosecute Smollett (and not to dismiss charges as Ms. Foxx had intended to do) is her definition of “mob justice” and a “kangaroo court.”

But this was no isolated incident according to Ms. Foxx. Oh, no. “Black women elected prosecutors around the country have faced the same mob mentality.” One example she cites is how “opponents of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner are working to revoke her law license as retribution for her decision to prosecute former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.”

Ms. Foxx is referring to the investigation by the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel (OCDC) after it received ethical complaints by the attorneys who represented Greitens. That investigation independently determined that Ms. Gardner had in fact violated the Rules of Professional Conduct during the prosecution of Greitens (and also lied to their investigator about it). Ms. Foxx sees both Ms. Gardner and herself facing “the same mob mentality.”

It’s interesting, though, that Ms. Foxx never identifies this “mob.” However, I will out them. This “mob” are the judges and officials enforcing the established laws and codes which govern our profession, and which are designed to make certain that we lawyers behave ethically. And, it is particularly important for prosecutors to behave ethically because they wield so much power. They are not supposed to talk with the family of a criminal suspect and offer to help them before the case is even fully investigated or charges are brought. They are not supposed to suborn perjury and then lie about it.

I guess Ms. Foxx believes that she and Kim Gardner should get to do whatever they want because as “black women elected prosecutors,” they shouldn’t be held to the same standards as everyone else. They’re special and deserve special treatment.