Posted on March 11, 2022

Kim Foxx Calls Jussie Smollett Prosecution Failure of Justice System

Gabrielle Fonrouge, New York Post, March 11, 2021

Chicago’s top prosecutor, who originally let Jussie Smollett skate on 16 felony charges for lying to police, called the prosecution of the disgraced actor a failure of the justice system and said he was the victim of “mob justice.”

Kim Foxx made the remarks in a Thursday night column in the Chicago Sun-Times published shortly after Smollett, 39, was sentenced to five months in jail for staging a hate crime against himself in a bid to raise his public profile.

“Just because we do not like the outcome should not mean we bully prosecutors and circumvent the judicial process to get it changed. Smollett was indicted, tried and convicted by a kangaroo prosecution in a matter of months,” Foxx wrote in the piece.

“Meanwhile, the families of more than 50 Black women murdered in Chicago over the last 20 years await justice.”

Shortly after a grand jury returned a 16-count indictment against Smollett in 2019, Foxx made the decision to quietly drop all charges against him after he agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond and complete some community service hours.

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Foxx continued to speak with Smollett’s sister after he was the target of a criminal probe and deliberately misled the public in her “colloquial recusal” where she continued to be actively involved in the case and never filed to appoint a special prosecutor, as is required by law.

The missteps ultimately prompted Judge Michael Toomin to appoint special prosecutor Dan Webb to reinvestigate the case, ruling Foxx’s handling of the matter was rife with “unprecedented irregularities” {snip}

In the column, Foxx defended her “prosecutorial discretion” in her decision to drop the charges against Smollett and criticized the appointment of Webb as “mob justice.”

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