Progressive prosecutor Kim Foxx’s outrageous sweetheart deal is the culprit.
Maybe Chicago’s top law “enforcement” official, Cook County’s George Soros– and Big Labor–backed progressive prosecutor, Kim Foxx, is malevolent. Maybe she’s incompetent. Maybe it’s both — the two possibilities, after all, are not mutually exclusive.
Whatever the explanation, Foxx is responsible for the Illinois supreme court’s stunning reversal of Jussie Smollett’s conviction for staging an ostensibly racist and homophobic attack on himself (designed to defame Trump supporters) and then filing a false report about it — causing Chicago police to waste valuable time and resources.
Smollett is a celebrity actor who is black and gay. Consequently, his case was a cause célèbre for progressives: It didn’t matter that the story might be untrue because . . . Trump. Foxx heard them. Police wanted real charges pressed, particularly given that Smollett did not, and has never, expressed remorse for his actions. The prosecutor rebuffed them, pleading the case out for a song: Smollett was not required to plead guilty or serve any jail time; he merely had to forfeit the $10,000 bail bond he had posted and perform 15 hours of community service.
Naturally, the sweetheart deal caused an uproar. A special prosecutor was assigned to take over the case, Smollett was charged, and a jury found him guilty on five counts of disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to five months’ jail time but served only six days before being granted bail pending appeal.
Smollett was never actually charged with a crime by Foxx, so this was not a situation in which his constitutional double jeopardy right — the right not to be tried twice on the same criminal charge — was triggered.
On appeal, however, his lawyers posited a due process claim based, essentially, on a breach of contract theory. The contention was that Foxx made a contract with Smollett: She would agree not to charge him if he forfeited the bond and performed the community service. Since Smollett performed his end of the bargain, the defense theorized, Cook County was bound by Foxx’s commitment not to file charges.
It is true that the consideration provided by Smollett was a pittance — an amount of money and time that, particularly to him, was trivial, with no demand that he admit fault or apologize for the trouble he had caused. But, in contract law, there need only be nominal consideration in order to make an agreement enforceable.
If there is outrage, it ought to be directed at Foxx. But, of course, she is still the state’s attorney for the second largest prosecutor’s office in the United States. And, as our Jeff Blehar can tell you, with Brandon Johnson ensconced in the Chicago mayor’s office, Foxx is not even the Windy City’s biggest problem.