Foxx Vs. O'Brien: Cook County State's Attorney

CHICAGO — Embattled Democratic incumbent Kim Foxx is being challenged in the 2020 Cook County State’s Attorney race by Republican Judge Pat O’Brien and Libertarian candidate Brian Dennehy.

In 2016, Foxx cruised easily into office on a wave of public outrage over the 2014 murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery and sentenced to six years in prison.

Foxx grew up in Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project, where she was raised by her young mother and grandmother, according to her campaign website. She saw firsthand the impact of crime, violence and poverty on communities. Foxx attended Southern Illinois University and the SIU School of Law. She is the former chief of staff for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and led the county’s criminal justice reform agenda to address racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems. She also served as a prosecutor for 12 years in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Foxx and her husband, Kelley, are the parents of four teenage girls.

Want more election news and information about your town? Sign up for Patch alerts and daily newsletters.

Foxx entered office vowing to reform Cook County’s criminal justice system by making a fairer, safer system for “disenfranchised low-income people and communities of color.” This included bail reform by detaining only those who are deemed a danger to the community, and changing how traffic offenses are prosecuted, which she claimed punished people simply because they were poor and couldn’t afford to pay their fines. During the past three years, the state’s attorney’s office has also exonerated 80 people who were wrongfully convicted.

Foxx found herself under fire when her office dropped 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct against “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a racist, homophobic attack on himself. In a summary report, Special Prosecutor Daniel Webb determined that while Foxx did not break the law, she had engaged in "substantial abuses of discretion” and made "false and/or misleading statements to the public.” The final report has not yet been released to the public.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office issued a statement in response "categorically rejecting" Webb's assessments that Foxx made false statements to the public or abused her prosecutorial discretion. Foxx has also drawn criticism from Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown and his predecessor Eddie Johnson for her practice of low bonds and/or electronic monitoring of those accused of violent crimes, especially in light of Chicago’s skyrocketing homicides.

O’Brien was born and raised in Chicago’s West Side Austin neighborhood. He has twice worked as a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office handling high profile cases. O’Brien also served as the Assistant Illinois Attorney General, where he supported local State’s Attorney’s Offices across the State of Illinois with major criminal cases.

In 2006, he was elected as a judge in the Cook County Circuit Court, presiding over criminal and civil cases for eight years before returning to private practice concentrating on criminal law. O’Brien earned his bachelor’s at Notre Dame University and a law degree at DePaul University College of Law. O’Brien has been married to his wife, Diane, for 35 years and resides in Chicago’s North Side Edgewater neighborhood.

O’Brien is running on a #FireKimFoxx platform, according to his campaign website. He told WEBZ that Foxx has enforced “a misguided social agenda and not the law,” views criminals as “victims,” and that victims of crime “deserve no more protection than the people who commit crimes against them.”

In one of several high profile press conferences, O’Brien lambasted Foxx’s policies for removing a Chicago man on a pending juvenile case from electronic monitoring days before police said he allegedly stabbed Walgreen’s employee Olga Maria Calderon to death in September.

"[Foxx] has given more legal protection and more consideration to people that commit crimes than the people who are victims of crimes or potentially the victims of crimes," O'Brien said. "In this case, [Foxx’s] failure to object and require the electronic monitoring may have cost Ms. Calderon her life."

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s race has grown increasingly nasty, with both candidates releasing ads attacking the other. One of Foxx's digital ads features three men who were wrongfully convicted of the 1986 murder of Chicago medical student Lori Roscetti.

O’Brien was the assistant state’s attorney in the trial that sent the three men to prison for 14 years. He said at the time he prosecuted them he believed the men were guilty, and blamed the larger criminal justice system for failing them. The men were eventually exonerated by DNA evidence, which O’Brien said was not available in 1986.

In another ad, Foxx called O’Brien “pure Trump.”

Similarly, O’Brien has also run attack ads, accusing Foxx of failing the youngest victims of gun violence by releasing violent offenders back on to the streets and quoting Chicago’s top cop, David Brown, that there are “zero consequences following certain gun offenses.”

Brown said his comment was taken out of context and that as the police superintendent he doesn’t make political endorsements.

O’Brien is hoping for an upset, citing an internal poll that showed Foxx leading 48-38, with 18 percent of voters undecided.

Foxx has been endorsed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Gov. J. B. Pritzker, Dick Durbin and the Chicago Sun-Times. Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harri made a robocall pitch on Foxx’s behalf.

O’Brien has won the endorsement of the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago Ald. Brendan Reilly and former Chicago Blackhawks star Chris Chelios.

Return to Patch for local election results: Subscribe to free News Alerts.