Following a week of intense scrutiny in her handling of the Jussie Smollett scandal, Kim Foxx has welcomed calls for an investigation into her office’s handling of the case, in an explosive op-ed.
Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Foxx insists there’s nothing to hide in the prosecution’s decision to suddenly drop all 16 felony charges against the Empire star on Tuesday.
Smollett, 36, was accused last month of staging a racist and homophobic attack in a believed bid to advance his on-screen career.
And the State’s attorney was lambasted this week after suggesting Smollett didn’t receive special legal treatment, but instead was subjected to ‘alternative prosecution’, following negotiations between her legal team and Smollett’s defense lawyers.
Kim Foxx has welcomed calls for an internal investigation into her office’s handling of the case in an explosive op-ed in the Chicago Tribune
All 16 charges were miraculously dropped against Jussie Smollett on Tuesday, in a shock press conference
Foxx dismissed the public outcry surrounding her team’s methods and said only the people ‘in the weeds’ of the justice system would understand that ‘alternative prosecution’ is common practice and has happened thousands of times before.
But again the attorney faced even more criticism on Wednesday, when an email she sent to her workforce asking them to come up with examples to help prove ‘alternative sentencing’ exists, was leaked to the press.
‘Since it seems politically expedient right now to question my motives and actions, and those of my office, let me state publicly and clearly that I welcome an outside, nonpolitical review of how we handled this matter,’ Foxx wrote on Friday.
‘I am not perfect, nor is any other prosecutor out there, but ensuring that I and my office have our community’s trust is paramount.’
In the article, Foxx also suggests for the first time that the state’s case against Smollett may not have been as strong as first suggested.
During the actor’s bond hearing last month, Foxx’s team of prosecutors detailed a multitude of evidence – including phone records and bank transactions – that they said definitively proved the actor helped orchestrate the attack on himself, on January 29.
Foxx dismissed the public outcry around it and said only the people ‘in the weeds’ of the justice system would understand that ‘alternative prosecution’ was actually a common practice
An email was leaked on Wednesday which shows Foxx scrambling to find other examples to back up her office’s decision on Smollett
But in her article, Foxx’s says her team’s evidence only helped to debunk ‘portions of Smollett’s claims’ about the attack, and insisted the likelihood of securing a conviction against him was ‘uncertain’.
‘For a variety of reasons, including public statements made about the evidence in this case, my office believed the likelihood of securing a conviction was not high,’ she said in the Tribune.
She went on to dismiss Smollett’s claims that he was innocent and had been exonerated as ‘simply wrong’.
‘He has not been exonerated; he has not been found innocent,’ she defiantly stated.
Foxx, who took office as the state’s attorney in 2016, said that in the interests of ‘full transparency’, she’s hoping to release all of the records surround Smollett to the public.
The motion remains unlikely, as Smollett’s team have a legal right to ask that the file remain sealed.
She added that the charges against Smollett were low-level and, as a result, as often resolved long before courtroom proceedings begin – particularly if the defendant has no previous criminal history.
Foxx, who took office as the state’s attorney in 2016, said that in the interests of ‘full transparency’, she’s hoping to release all of the records surround Smollett to the public
Despite the high-profile nature of Smollett’s case, Foxx believes Chicago has bigger problems at hand, and believes the city’s prosecutor’s time would be better spent tackling the rise in violent crime and misconduct of police officers.
‘I am angry at anyone who falsely reports a crime,’ she wrote. ‘I am afraid when I see a little girl shot dead while sitting on her mother’s lap. I am afraid when I see a CPD commander slain by a four-time felon who was walking the streets.’
Foxx continued, saying that when she was elected she pledged to reform the justice system, and ‘to keep people out of prison who don’t pose a danger to the community’.
‘I promised to spend my office’s finite resources on the most serious crimes in order to create communities that are both safer and fairer,’ she concluded.
Foxx recused herself from the Smollett case in February after exchanging text messages with one of his relatives, but she never appointed a special prosecutor.