14 ms·

After 20 Years as a Prosecutor in Illinois, I Quit

170 points by baremetal 3y ago

yellow_lead 3y ago
This reads like a political statement. No figures, facts, or reasoning.
- suzzer99 3y ago
  > the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers I stopped reading here. It's nearly impossible to prosecute a cop for anything but the most heinous abuse of the system. This is just gibberish.
treebeard901 3y ago
A cynical answer for fixing crime.... Make all crimes have unlimited statue of limitations Understand you have no Constitutional right to be charged with a crime you have been accused of doing This loophole avoids due process for an accused person entirely The unlimited statue of limitations will allow any law enforcement agent investigating you to have unlimited powers as judge, jury and possibly executioner. The state legislature will no longer need to worry about passing laws with associated crime and punishment Since the accused will never have a day in court and never have to face any punishment defined by law, it will save lots of money paying for courts, judges, Juries, prosecutors and public defenders. All accused people can be treated as guilty until proven innocent and will have no opportunity to prove innocence The endless "investigation" can slowly take away the accused life over time. First family and friends, followed by their career and home. Before long they cannot work, they become homeless, and the process itself simply becomes the method of execution. Crime solved. /s (This is actually being done to me)
the_absurdist 3y ago
Challenge: Let's see if anyone with a username linked to their true identity can figure out a way to speak honestly about this without tanking their career.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  What is the agreement or disagreement you are having with that content which would get you fired?
- tupshin 3y ago
  Challenge accepted. This article is an emotional rant (true or false) is not well grounded in facts and causality. There fundamental claim is that > The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt. So the claim is that his state, county, and agency are all backing policies that predictably lead to more crime. Those policies are then characterized as: * bond/bail reform * reduced parole and sentences in some cases * "malicious" prosecution of law officers * not prosecuting some crimes that are on the books Unfortunately the author makes zero references, citations, or arguments for why these policies are harmful, as enacted, and why they might have led to the negative experiences of their family. So it's an emotional content (nearly) free emotional rant that doesn't move the discussion forward in any helpful way. Analysis that showed even correlation would be interesting/useful. This is not.
  - P_I_Staker 3y ago
    But he hears gun shots sometimes and saw a drug dealer. That surely proves everything has gotten out of hand. Time to lock people up before they're proven guilty of committing any crimes, put non-violent criminals in cages, and permanently ruin peoples lives, preventing them from gainful employment!
    - barbazoo 3y ago
      And don't forget about the > malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers
      - P_I_Staker 3y ago
SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
This is a strange letter. It claims specific policies have a direct causal relationship with crime and gun prevalence, and therefore the entire state of Illinois is unsafe. Do we actually have evidence that proves this out? (Edited to add: I’m admitting ignorance here, not trying to say the above is false! I am very good faith behavior here.) I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing. It’s been well known public defenders are forced to take up an unreasonable number of cases where the prosecution decides to hand over the evidence to be debated about— the prosecution is supposed to hand over everything, but there’s been multiple cases of prosecutors happenstancely not handing over evidence that would prove innocence and then not losing their jobs for doing so!
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  I agree on the causation. During the same time hasn't the US had a major drug crisis across the country? He might be right but he is not showing much evidence (ironically) of it. PS Very cute username!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pookha 3y ago
    Here's a data point...Harris county TX let a capital murder suspect out on some ludicrously low bond (9K, which meant he only spent 900 dollars to get out). Here's a description of the suspects: "They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as well," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple capital murders and bonded out each time: https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspect-out-on-bond/285-4b912e55-4254-43f2-a7fd-a095bb09398a https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspe... That is psychopathy in the justice system.
    - masklinn 3y ago
      This has nothing to do with bail though? The point of bail is to ensure the suspect shows up to court appearances. The use of bail as a way to force remanding is essentially a multi-pronged tax on poorer defendants (as they either need a loan to post bail, or have to suffer the loss of income and psychological damage from detention). If the prosecution believes the accused is a danger to society, they should argue for remanding on those grounds, not ask for bails which have no actual relation to the accused’s likelihood of showing up.
nness 3y ago
So, I know nothing of Illinois or State Attorney Kim Foxx, but I do have a litmus test where I search the author/person in focus and note the top results who are sharing the story — New York Post, Daily Mail, Fox News, etc. Does such things invalidate the points made in the article? No. But it helps me judge the level of scrutiny I need to apply.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  You (or any user) posting that sort of detail helps me figure out how to frame loaded commentary. I want take a thoughtful step back if I run into a challenge to my worldview but I don't have limitless energy to do so. I need to pick healthy and worthwhile challenges.
- gadders 3y ago
  "Does it fit the narrative?"
  - jen20 3y ago
    “Is it sensationalised trash designed for boomers who are not capable of reading on a topic unless there are intensifiers before every keyword?” is generally the hallmark of those publications. If it were the WSJ, Telegraph or Times (London) publishing it too, your concern would be more justified.
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    The Murdoch narrative? It certainly appears to.
- ap99 3y ago
  Both sides have a narrative. The news CNN or NYTimes night carry is often ignored by NYPost or Fox and vice versa because it doesn't fit their narratives. Having a narrative on either side doesn't mean the things being reported on are incorrect or even embellished. But yes, you do need to be aware of the narrative so you can place different weights on news items. Or... Find better news sources.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
I'm from the distant suburbs of Chicago, in a different county, and I believe the author is alluding to frustration about crime and corruption possibly correlated with this person below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Foxx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Foxx
- zdragnar 3y ago
  I'm from much farther away, and thought it was rather blatant, given that she is the State's Attorney.
- Izkata 3y ago
  Specifically see under "Reduction in incarceration rates": She just lets criminals go free.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    Sure, lets take a look at that section. > Foxx has directed her office to not prosecute shoplifting cases under $1,000 as felonies. I mean you can still prosecute them as anything else i.e. misdemeanor. Personally, I'm not sure that stealing a backpack with a laptop should count as a felony. If not getting to put somebody away for a decades for stealing an iPhone makes you quit your job; maybe you're not in it to protect and to serve. > declining to prosecute low-level shoplifting and drug offenses and by diverting more cases to alternative treatment programs. So instead of sending people to jail she's sending them to rehab. I'd personally say a very short prison sentence followed by rehab is probably most effective (I mean look at how hard white collar criminals try to avoid prison; it has a powerful effect even if its for <7d). But unless he's going to show that the people in rehab instead of prison are committing these crimes (which it almost always isn't; plenty of fresh criminals available) it's an argument without any evidence. I also don't think firing gunshots in a playground (his actual complain) counts as "low-level shoplifting" as well as crime is increasing everywhere including non-democratic states/counties. She'd never get elected in the bible belt so many he should consider employment there. (note: bible belt has the highest homicide rate [1]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate#See_also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...
thebooktocome 3y ago
> Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, At the time you make bond, you have merely been charged with a crime—you are not a criminal. I’m sure a prosecutor does get tired of having to argue cases against defendants who were able, by virtue of habeas corpus, to prepare a defense. > shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, Things that mitigate real inequities present when the justice system interacts with poor people. > the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, This is a terrible thing to say in a world where police officers have no obligation to serve and extraordinary legal defenses that protect them from almost every form of wrongdoing. > overuse of diversion programs, The United States already incarcerates a relatively large fraction of the world’s children. He would prefer incarcerating more. > intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, This prosecutor has had this power for twenty years, and I’m certain he’s used it freely. He’s likely used it to protect people he feels sympathy toward, and refrained from using it to protect people he feels no sympathy toward. He’s likely used it because he feels overworked or under-appreciated. > all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation. As a prosecutor, he had wide-reaching legal power to make his community a better place. What did he do instead? To hear him tell it, he was the one in prison for twenty years.
- DebtDeflation 3y ago
  >This is a terrible thing to say in a world where police officers have no obligation to serve and extraordinary legal defenses that protect them from almost every form of wrongdoing. Yeah, the author lost me here. I'm all for law and order when it comes to catching and prosecuting murderers, rapists, kidnappers, armed robbers, etc. However, I've seen FAR too many videos of situations where there was no crime that had been committed and no threat to public safety when a police officer showed up and escalated a non-issue into a serious situation that resulted in someone being killed, beaten, and/or arrested for no real reason. There has to be some sort of middle ground.
  - 3y ago
ab_goat 3y ago
The key issue here is the difficult choice between: a. Incorrectly and significantly disrupting people's lives by locking them up pre-trial when many cases up getting acquitted. This can often sink folk into much worse situations than they were before, creating an endless cycle b. Potentially releasing some dangerous criminals back into society while they wait their trials edit: to be clear, I think the likelihood * impact of false positives is way worse than the false negatives
- steveBK123 3y ago
  One thing with the bail reform movement is that the voters who are asked whether they support it don't necessarily understand the seemingly obvious, but technically non-obvious terms being used. For example in NY, it was sold as only applying to non-violent crimes. So one might say - sure this sound great, obviously we don't need to pre-trial hold non-violent criminals! However technically, as defined in law, theres a lot of things that "sound violent" but are considered non-violent felonies. Second degree manslaughter (125.15) is, for the purposes of NY State law, a non-violent felony. So the next question - what might get a person charged with second degree manslaughter? * Well, a guy recently chocked an erratic mentally ill homeless man to death on the subway was charged with second degree manslaughter only Other historical examples just to name a few- * Speeding 55mph in a 25mph local road (Delancey), killing a pedestrian and fleeing the scene * Guy accidentally shooting a friend with an unregistered gun while playing video games * DUI with kids in the car so badly you flip the car, killing one child * Drunken stealing a truck, driving up 7th Ave and hitting a Bus so fast they killed the driver * Guy overdosing his 10 month old on fentanyl somehow * Cop accidentally shoots a guy in the stairway of a housing project, proceeds to leave and call union rep rather than render assistance, while arguing with his partner not to report the shooting * Drunk driving 90mph in a 25mph, crashing into another drunk driver who was on a suspended license, killing a passenger in the back, and the most either of them got charged with was again, second degree manslaughter
  - oerpli 3y ago
    I don't see how any of these cases prove your point. None of these offenders seem to fit a profile of someone that is a threat to public safety.
noodlesUK 3y ago
What I don’t understand about the opponents of things like bail reform is that very few other countries have a similar system to the USA at all. A determination is made about whether the person charged is a flight risk, a danger to the public, etc. If they are determined to meet those criteria, they are remanded. If they don’t, they are bailed. Why does money have to have anything to do with it?
- pixl97 3y ago
  >Why does money have to have anything to do with it? Short answer: Bounty hunters. If you jump bail, they get part of the bail payment for capturing you. It's a long standing privatization of law enforcement in the US.
  - nervousvarun 3y ago
    Also bail bondsman. They provide the bail bond for people who can't afford to pay (which surprise is the majority of people). For a % of course. It's all a bit...predatory.
    - noodlesUK 3y ago
      I think this is the part of the system that I find the most distasteful. If you're charged with a crime, you do everything right, you get bailed, you get found not guilty or the charges are dropped, you don't get the money you paid the bondsman back. It's horrifying.
      - plagiarist 3y ago
        And for Americans living paycheck to paycheck they don't have the option to wait it out. They have to get back to work or be homeless.
      - ddingus 3y ago
        What one can do is pay for their own representation and when acquitted, file a tort to recover financial damages from the entity who picked the fight. That is what I did when I faced this scenario. Takes a long time. Speedy trials suddenly slow down. Pressure to get a person on more charges goes up. Offers get better. Requests for court appearances increase in frequency and more.
aqme28 3y ago
I don't know where exactly in Illinois they live, but violent crime has generally fallen in the state, and is almost certainly much lower than when they moved there. Some local exceptions exist in Chicago, but they keep calling themselves an "Illinois" prosecutor and do not mention the city.
- kyrra 3y ago
  Chicago is Illinois, you should know that if you live there. The rest of the state doesn't really exist.
  - aqme28 3y ago
    Then that kind of reinforces my point that Illinois crime statistics are way down
- nervousvarun 3y ago
  Agreed he could have been more specific but a Google search confirms his territory is Chicago. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/longtime-chicago-prosecutor-jason-poje-quits-over-crime-surge-leaders-woke-social-experiment/ar-AA1aYwpM https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/longtime-chicago-prosec...
- unregistereddev 3y ago
  From an editor's note, the author is a Cook County prosecutor. As a former Illinois resident, I can tell you Cook County means Chicago and a cluster of close suburbs.
- 1123581321 3y ago
  In parts of IL the violent crime trend has reversed since 2019-2020, including parts of Chicago (city where the author practiced.)
wffurr 3y ago
There was an earlier comment wondering where the letters author might move to, since Illinois is an average state in terms of violence and crime. Ironically?, Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the country for him to move to if he’s concerned about gun violence, but we also tend to elect progressive reform minded prosecutors that he thinks are the problem.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  If he goes to Texas it would confirm the impression I got from reading that.
- ap99 3y ago
  Culture and wealth levels have a bigger impact on crime, in my opinion, than progressive or conservative local politics.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the country for him to move to if he’s concerned about gun violence, but we also tend to elect progressive reform minded prosecutors that he thinks are the problem. Utah looks better [0]. Higher gun ownership %, but lower gun death rate than Massachusetts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Strange, the CDC has Massachusetts as having lower gun death than Utah. The lowest in fact: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/... Utah is ranked just ahead of Florida. Oh, I see, your numbers don’t include suicides, which is the majority of gun deaths.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the country for him to move to if he’s concerned about gun violence It would be very odd indeed to include suicides in stats of how dangerous it is to live in a state.
bedhead 3y ago
Former Chicagoan here. Grew up there, lived there most of my adult life, raised kids there, and finally, thankfully, moved to another state three years ago. It's easy to pile on, but one of the main things that did it for me was sorta this realization that Chicago is more or less hopeless. There's no willingness to even discuss Chicago's problems honestly, let alone do something about them. The culture there is just too far gone - it's depressing. Was I worried that violent crime was going to imminently find its way to my doorstep? No, not really. But with three kids in Chicago Public Schools (no more dysfunctional, shameful organization exists in this country than CPS) I turned to my wife one day and said, "You know, we don't have to live like this." So we left.
- bradleyjg 3y ago
  Read the comments on this post. No one here wants to hear it. People in Europe, SV, god-knows-where have all kinds of facts and figures they just spent two minutes googling that prove there’s nothing to see here and Chicago is fine.
  - one_level_deep 3y ago
    I live in Chicago and have no idea what you are talking about. The local newspapers and tv are constantly talking about these issues. Crime and CPS were by far the primary discussions in the recent election. Who and where are these people refusing to talk about them?
  - djfobbz 3y ago
    Love your comment. Being from the Midwest, I'm in complete disbelief reading some of these comments. They seem to be completely out of touch with reality!
  - commandlinefan 3y ago
    There's a comment upstream that says "this person's opinions are similar to those of Fox News and the NY Post, so it should be ignored". That doesn't bode well for the actual people who have to live in Chicago.
jjoonathan 3y ago
> [Public Defenders'] work is as noble as ours. But we have an obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly. I was on Jury Duty last year and every day I had to walk past a tiny decrepit Public Defender office and then past sprawling, spotless floors of Attorney General offices. I probably have the wrong terms, the specifics are fading, but the general meaning of the signs seemed clear enough. What a shameful disgrace. Society doesn't have a thumb on the scale, it has a foot on the scale. No, I don't think shifting the extreme imbalance even further towards Prosecution is going to fix crime. Maybe things are different in Chicago, but I'd want to hear from Defense before just believing a rant from Prosecution.
- ddingus 3y ago
  Yup. Anyone charged with a crime would be well advised to do whatever it takes to seek council directly, as in finding a way to pay for it. Public defenders are doing noble work. They are also denied the resources necessary to perform that work with the same zeal seen in the prosecution side of the justice system.
  - Slava_Propanei 3y ago
    No, we are not. I’ve worked as a defense attorney. It is was terrifying to see how much leeway and how many extra chances were given to violent criminals. The DAs job is impossible.
    - hgomersall 3y ago
      Maybe you should try being a defendant to actually get a balanced perspective (a good thing to try would be to get yourself arrested for something that you didn't do but is just your word against theirs). For extra experience try doing that whilst being black. For reference, I have being on the receiving end of an entirely unwarranted accusation for a trivial crime in the UK (which is often held up as being a good example of a fair system). It occupied an unbelievable amount of headspace and was hugely stressful. I'm educated, reasonably well off and white. The system felt very very powerful and unpredictable from my position and I was never even arrested (just accused, which is enough for the police to treat you as a perpetrator). If the prosecution had happened and had gone anywhere (it didn't) and I'd been convicted I would have got a small fine, but I was still far too worried that my innocence was insufficient to protect me. All the way through you're treated as though you are guilty, and the accuser is the "victim". Honestly, the only victim in the whole sorry affair was me. I can't imagine what it must feel like if you're on the receiving end of an unwarranted accusation for a more serious crime. Especially if everyone thinks you're guilty because your have priors and "look guilty".
draw_down 3y ago
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almost_usual 3y ago
How is this tech related?
- timbit42 3y ago
  Not all hackers hack tech.
mchannon 3y ago
After being railroaded by a dirty prosecutor, I’d like to dispel one trope: Brandolini’s law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, states that it takes 10x the effort to dispel bullshit as it takes to make it. Therefore, every set of bullshit charges takes a public defender 10x the resources to counteract. Any fair system, every fair system, would have public defenders substantially better funded than prosecutors. I think I speak for a good number of Cook county residents when I say: Bye Felicia.
- strawhatguy 3y ago
  Personally, I think there should NOT be a prosecutor's office and a public defender's office. It should be the same lawyers, and randomly get the cases for or against. That way the resources are in the same 'pot' if you will. Still have to contend with the fact that a mere accusation colors public perception, and so often gives the advantage to the prosecution in the court of public opinion
  - mchannon 3y ago
    Perhaps a good idea in theory, it'd be horrible in practice. Enough "horse-trading" goes on as it is (you go easy on client A, I'll offer client B up to you on this other case on a silver platter; that way we both make our numbers and look good). A better idea would be the appointment of a special "evidence master" who holds and controls all evidence and determines who gets to see what evidence, with a bias toward everybody seeing everything. Right now police turn their evidence over to prosecutors and prosecutors determine what the defense (and public) see. If prosecutors don't want them to have something, they don't get it, and no one's ever going to know. I have real trouble believing any society where prosecutions rely on bluffing and brinksmanship to coerce plea bargains is a fair and just one. There should be no plea bargains. There should also be no peremptory juror challenges. In all honesty, I think AI would be a great candidate to replace both prosecutors and defense attorneys. The playing field would finally be level for once. Judges too.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  Aren't you reinforcing the trope instead of dispelling it?
Convolutional 3y ago
There is the war on drugs, locking people in prison due to marijuana transactions. With all the talk of China being a police state, the US has more people incarcerated than China - and China's population is more than four times that of the US. European countries don't have these problems, like the rash of mass shootings we have had in the past few weeks in just Texas. Also these prisons are a sop to rural communities for money and jobs, with prisoners from the cities. The prisoners also count for congressional districts going to these areas but can not vote. Of course there is also the profit making of private prisons. Judges have been found sending innocent people to jail for kickbacks. It is time to solve these problems like Europe does, and one step is incarceration going down to three times the rate of China, as opposed to over four times.
- mantas 3y ago
  „European“ policy has caveats too. What you call „european“ policy is mostly West europe. That had pretty good cultural hold on crimes. for a while. This method does work for it. But when here in eastern europe got same policies forced down our throats... Here culture is slightly different and many criminals are career criminals and take pride their... line of work. So we get routine re-offenses. Or people commit new crimes while waiting for trial. West seems to have issues with certain parts of their societies that ain't culturally trained to behave too. This doesn't work well if society accepts crime as a respectable line of work. E.g. glorifying criminal „subculture“ and normalising that.
- morning-coffee 3y ago
  > It is time to solve these problems like Europe does, and one step is incarceration going down to three times the rate of China, as opposed to over four times. But correlation does not imply causation, right? I don't understand how it follows from noting our incarceration rate being higher than another place with less crime, and then reaching the seeming conclusion that the answer, therefore, is to stop putting people in jail.
- intrasight 3y ago
  > the US has more people incarcerated than China Summary execution keeps incarceration rates down. It also disincentivizes crime.
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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anovikov 3y ago
Real solution depends on increasing jail and prison capacity. Why are massive, state-run, gulag-style camps are not in the books? With spare capacity so that every would-be criminal knows there's space for everyone, further deterring them? It must also instill fear and terror in every criminal, including those born and raised in most terrible conditions.
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Doesn't the US already have the world biggest prison system and the most people in jail/prison. I think the whole concept of it being a deterrent has been debunked.
  - DerpyBaby123 3y ago
    I think the comment you replied to was being facetious
  - anovikov 3y ago
    Even if it's not a good deterrent, it may solve the problem directly: incarcerate these people and make sure they are too old and sick when they get out, to still be a big problem. Sure US has an overly large prison population but no other developed country is as diverse, it also doesn't have a wide social safety net that works around the problem at the cost of blocking development with insane taxes. It's a country where you either win, or you lose, and the system must ensure that those who lost don't get in the way of those still running.
    - scotty79 3y ago
      I think we should aim at prison capacity of about 90% of the population. Let's face it. About 1% of society can actually live on their own. Another 10% might be able to sustain themselves with work. That leaves about 90% that will eventually end up in jail because of their economic conditions. It's not a bad thing. 10% can watch them, feed them and cloth them, while 1% pays for everything with their pocket money and finally has peace and quiet. /s
vonwoodson 3y ago
[flagged]
- Empact 3y ago
  > I’ll never understand In activism, people have the capacity for voice and exit. He apparently is exercising both. > Nobody cares what you think The letter being discussed here seems rather to confirm that people do care.
djha-skin 3y ago
> I will not raise my son here. Whenever we look at these situations as HNers there is often armchair reasoning about the situation. The author is not reasoning from an armchair. This is visceral to him. Whether he is right or wrong, we should do him the courtesy of acknowledging his feelings and believing him when he is there and we are not.
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  > This is visceral to him. It may also just be that, as his LinkedIn shows him now working for a fancy law firm in Wisconsin, the amount of money dangled in front of him was "visceral" and this letter is just an easy cheap shot when he's already out the door.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  5 million people happily live in Cook county. His feelings are misguided and his opinions largely irrelevant.
2devnull 3y ago
If public defenders had the same resources as the persecution, Sam Bankman-Fried wouldn’t need to spend a cent on his defense. I am sure that’s not what we want. We want defenders to have a possibility of winning, not guaranteed success. Most of the defendants are guilty after all.
- lowmagnet 3y ago
  This is the "I paid for college so why should education be free" argument.
giantg2 3y ago
Wow, bias much? How does this lawyer, who is supposed to be trained in logic, not see the doublespeak here. On one hand they say there are needless prosecutions of police, but then laments the discretion to not prosecute some crimes. Which do you want - to vigorously pursue crimes, or to use discretion? It seems they want discretion, but to only use it with police. It's laughable they think the defenders have an fair chance and even resources (as implied in their mention of the adversarial system and respect for them). I agree that some of the policies listed are problematic. One thing this guy completely misses is that crime is primarily driven by socioeconomic issues. Did the policies in place exacerbate crime? Many likely did. But the majority of the increase in the past few years has been driven by the pandemic and policies around that.
- OkayPhysicist 3y ago
  >> How does this lawyer, who is supposed to be trained in logic, not see the doublespeak here. We're talking about someone who's job is to persuade people for a living. Why would you doubt the deliberateness of their speech?
fnord77 3y ago
activist DA campaigns are being funded by unaccountable billionaires, and while their intent seems good the results are disastrous, at least in my area: Chesa Boudin and Priscilla Price
lowmagnet 3y ago
Real Clear Politics is a project of The Federalist, funded by Donor's Trust and Richard Uihlein. Do not believe everything they publish.
- ProAm 3y ago
  This has been posted all over. [1] [1] https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/departing-cook-county-prosecutor-upbraids-kim-foxx-in-searing-exit-letter https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/departing-cook-county...
- jeegsy 3y ago
  Are you suggesting the letter is fake?
  - lowmagnet 3y ago
    I'm not suggesting the letter is fake. I'm suggesting the site has an agenda to do what its "donors" want. The site exists to launder ideas.
- nxm 3y ago
  Any more so than anything WaPro, NYTimes, CNN or MSNBC produce.
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
My estimation of the typical prosecutor or DA was quite low. Then I sat on the grand jury. Before we ever started, he told us that if our hearts saw no crime, we had the discretion to not indict. This was strange, I was of the opinion they wanted to keep such things secret, after all. But he told us the story of a little old grandma, 90 years old, going to the airport and forgetting a Derringer in her purse. They were so fucking lazy. I know what you see on TV, but our grand jury consisted of another on the DA team coming in, giving a 30 second summary of the crimes of the accused, showing us no evidence whatsoever, and then moving on to the next. Probably 25 or 30 of these minimum, before lunch rolled around. We were allowed to ask questions, for which there was always a smarmy answer. "Oh, if you can't make it in, just call, a quorum's 9 so we probably won't even need to bring in an alternate". They did discover a need to bring in an alternate, the morning only 9 of us showed up. I had veto power. Every drug case that they made no claim of violence or gross negligence... no bill. Then I heard the "This isn't justice! You're all temporarily dismissed, until we can get an alternate in here later this afternoon" All because they had a hard-on for some college-aged kids selling weed. I think there was a sizable cash confiscation, but my understanding is that they got to keep the free money anyway. Even if not, I think the legal term is collateral estoppel, that is if they managed to "find" some new evidence they just introduced the case to a new grand jury when our term was up. I didn't really save anyone from anything, unless the prosecutors were truly as lazy as I believed them to be. On another day where it was slow, he sat there bragging about (at least before covid) they'd have 4000 cases a year... and do 30 trials. "We like the trials, they're so fun, it breaks up the monotony". They didn't like trials enough to give them to the other 3970 defendants they charged. Nor were they even clever enough to recognize that the nature of plea deals coerces those defendants to waive their rights to a trial. None of people on his team ever scored 99th percentile on a standardized test while in elementary school, I'd bet money on it. Though there was never an opportunity to ask, I often wondered if it clicked for him that his excuses for prosecuting crimes that shouldn't be crimes sounds an awful lot like the defense of those at Nuremberg. It may be impossible to find justice in our world, but if it is to be found, it must be in the opposite direction of where these people live and work. Deep space, the edge of the visible universe, it's probably not feasible to go far enough away from them to find it. Despite all of this, I have little doubt that if one of them were to quit, they could easily have written an article just like this one. Self-righteous, blind to the fact that they were if not the cause of these problems, then the biggest factor aggravating them. Remember, at the end of the day these assholes won't even do their job, they actively avoid trying to take each case to trial. If pleas aren't forthcoming and a two year stint in county waiting on a date won't cause the accused to budge, they're just as likely to drop it than push forward. They regularly pervert the bail process. They're complicit in turning it into a system of pre-conviction fines. Fuck'em all.
JustSomeNobody 3y ago
You don't fix this at the jail level. You don't fix this at the court level. You don't fix this at the police level. This is a society problem. You want gun toting thugs shooting shit up? Treat people like gun toting thugs! Fix society. Give people a way out of this shit. But no. That's too hard. That takes empathy. And empathy is "woke".
just3ws 3y ago
This has been so deeply politicized in Illinois the last gubernatorial candidates for the Republicans have propagandized the subject so fiercely in Illinois that nuanced debate is nearly impossible. I say this as a person who lives outside Chicago in the same region as one of those rightwing candidates and between McHenry Times rag and the absurd signage leading up to the election it was exhausting and consistenly done in bad faith. This article is an opinion on a right wing bias site that is promoting a key right wing political talking point, so no I do not trust that OP is even working in good faith. This isn't HN, this is something else.
just3ws 3y ago
This has been so deeply politicized in Illinois the last gubernatorial candidates for the Republicans have propagandized the subject so fiercely in Illinois that nuanced debate is nearly impossible. I say this as a person who lives outside Chicago in the same region as one of those rightwing candidates and between McHenry Times rag and the absurd signage leading up to the election it was exhausting and consistenly done in bad faith. This article is an opinion on a right wing bias site that is promoting a key right wing political talking point, so no I do not trust that OP is even working in good faith. This isn't HN, this is something else.
jfengel 3y ago
It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly. I don't think it "goes without saying" at all. We have an adversarial system. They make it very explicit that neither ethics nor honesty are required. Every lawyer will be very clear that you absolutely, positively need a lawyer for any interaction with the legal system. You cannot assume that the other people will be "evenhanded". It's your lawyer's job to force ethics on them. Without that, it goes without saying that they can get away with behaving unethically. To have it "go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly" would require a completely different legal system than the one we have. Our current one says exactly the opposite, by design. I spoke to a prosecutor recently that in his office, it was spoken out loud that they were to be ethical and evenhanded. But that was not a requirement, and other prosecutor's offices did not follow it. Their job was to be zealous in prosecution, just as the defense's job was to be zealous in defense, and everybody hoped that "justice" would emerge from that somehow.
Ballu 3y ago
And he moved to Madison, WI. Doesnt that city also have crime issues (atleast in media) like Chicago? https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-poje-54b4a818a/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-poje-54b4a818a/
rhaway84773 3y ago
Lol. Considering how stacked the odds are against public defenders and in favor of prosecutors I’d say the winner here is the state Of Illinois that they don’t have to pay severance to get rid of someone who is complaining about having a 20 handicap instead of a 21 handicap.
scotty79 3y ago
> ... we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes. That actually explains a lot. Like blatant disregard for the concept of truth in the entire justice system. From the lowliest convicts to the top judges. When there's competition and relationships are adversarial, the truth is the first victim. "If you are not cheating you, are not trying hard enough." mentality sets firmly in.
_8j50 3y ago
The whole thing is a sham but this guy is nuts to think prosecutors can't pull punches. I would agree with this guy if only I could be allowed to sue him when he over prosecuted or under prosecuted. What kind of a prosecutor does not appreciate prosecutorial discretion? "The people" can fight for themselves by voting and they voted for his bosses. Fighting for the people means honoring their electoral decisions! There is a lot being said between the lines here that I won't get into but this guy leaving the state and his job is a good thing for everyone involved. You know, many developed countries are far more lenient on bail bonds,sentencing,etc... than even illinois. But the fact of the matter is, criminals can get caught and do get locked up even in his state but the police and his colleagues are worried about locking up drug dealers and users and overpolicing minorities to meet quotas. He and his cop buddies suck at their jobs and like their peers in other big cities they are conservative and blame their own incompetence on liberal elected politicians whom the people support. Criminals they go after can't afford good lawyers like the ones that make ADA and overworked and resource starved public defenders can only do so much and this guy has the nerve to claim they are equally resourced like prosecutors are! The more I think about it the more this guy pisses me off. Who told him locking up criminals and preventing victims was his job? His job is to prosecute in accordance with his elected boss's policies! Not appointed, but elected!

170 points by baremetal 3y ago

yellow_lead 3y ago

This reads like a political statement. No figures, facts, or reasoning.

suzzer99 3y ago
> the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers I stopped reading here. It's nearly impossible to prosecute a cop for anything but the most heinous abuse of the system. This is just gibberish.

treebeard901 3y ago

A cynical answer for fixing crime.... Make all crimes have unlimited statue of limitations Understand you have no Constitutional right to be charged with a crime you have been accused of doing This loophole avoids due process for an accused person entirely The unlimited statue of limitations will allow any law enforcement agent investigating you to have unlimited powers as judge, jury and possibly executioner. The state legislature will no longer need to worry about passing laws with associated crime and punishment Since the accused will never have a day in court and never have to face any punishment defined by law, it will save lots of money paying for courts, judges, Juries, prosecutors and public defenders. All accused people can be treated as guilty until proven innocent and will have no opportunity to prove innocence The endless "investigation" can slowly take away the accused life over time. First family and friends, followed by their career and home. Before long they cannot work, they become homeless, and the process itself simply becomes the method of execution. Crime solved. /s (This is actually being done to me)

the_absurdist 3y ago

Challenge: Let's see if anyone with a username linked to their true identity can figure out a way to speak honestly about this without tanking their career.

plagiarist 3y ago
What is the agreement or disagreement you are having with that content which would get you fired?
tupshin 3y ago
Challenge accepted. This article is an emotional rant (true or false) is not well grounded in facts and causality. There fundamental claim is that > The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt. So the claim is that his state, county, and agency are all backing policies that predictably lead to more crime. Those policies are then characterized as: * bond/bail reform * reduced parole and sentences in some cases * "malicious" prosecution of law officers * not prosecuting some crimes that are on the books Unfortunately the author makes zero references, citations, or arguments for why these policies are harmful, as enacted, and why they might have led to the negative experiences of their family. So it's an emotional content (nearly) free emotional rant that doesn't move the discussion forward in any helpful way. Analysis that showed even correlation would be interesting/useful. This is not.
- P_I_Staker 3y ago
  But he hears gun shots sometimes and saw a drug dealer. That surely proves everything has gotten out of hand. Time to lock people up before they're proven guilty of committing any crimes, put non-violent criminals in cages, and permanently ruin peoples lives, preventing them from gainful employment!
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    And don't forget about the > malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers
    - P_I_Staker 3y ago

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago

This is a strange letter. It claims specific policies have a direct causal relationship with crime and gun prevalence, and therefore the entire state of Illinois is unsafe. Do we actually have evidence that proves this out? (Edited to add: I’m admitting ignorance here, not trying to say the above is false! I am very good faith behavior here.) I am immediately questioning this depiction that public defenders and prosecutors are on even footing. It’s been well known public defenders are forced to take up an unreasonable number of cases where the prosecution decides to hand over the evidence to be debated about— the prosecution is supposed to hand over everything, but there’s been multiple cases of prosecutors happenstancely not handing over evidence that would prove innocence and then not losing their jobs for doing so!

quickthrower2 3y ago
I agree on the causation. During the same time hasn't the US had a major drug crisis across the country? He might be right but he is not showing much evidence (ironically) of it. PS Very cute username!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pookha 3y ago
  Here's a data point...Harris county TX let a capital murder suspect out on some ludicrously low bond (9K, which meant he only spent 900 dollars to get out). Here's a description of the suspects: "They killed two people, and they also put a gun to a young mother with a 2-month-old, they put a gun to her head as well," said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. Here's a guy in Harris county that's committed multiple capital murders and bonded out each time: https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspect-out-on-bond/285-4b912e55-4254-43f2-a7fd-a095bb09398a https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/capital-murder-suspe... That is psychopathy in the justice system.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    This has nothing to do with bail though? The point of bail is to ensure the suspect shows up to court appearances. The use of bail as a way to force remanding is essentially a multi-pronged tax on poorer defendants (as they either need a loan to post bail, or have to suffer the loss of income and psychological damage from detention). If the prosecution believes the accused is a danger to society, they should argue for remanding on those grounds, not ask for bails which have no actual relation to the accused’s likelihood of showing up.

nness 3y ago

So, I know nothing of Illinois or State Attorney Kim Foxx, but I do have a litmus test where I search the author/person in focus and note the top results who are sharing the story — New York Post, Daily Mail, Fox News, etc. Does such things invalidate the points made in the article? No. But it helps me judge the level of scrutiny I need to apply.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
You (or any user) posting that sort of detail helps me figure out how to frame loaded commentary. I want take a thoughtful step back if I run into a challenge to my worldview but I don't have limitless energy to do so. I need to pick healthy and worthwhile challenges.
gadders 3y ago
"Does it fit the narrative?"
- jen20 3y ago
  “Is it sensationalised trash designed for boomers who are not capable of reading on a topic unless there are intensifiers before every keyword?” is generally the hallmark of those publications. If it were the WSJ, Telegraph or Times (London) publishing it too, your concern would be more justified.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  The Murdoch narrative? It certainly appears to.
ap99 3y ago
Both sides have a narrative. The news CNN or NYTimes night carry is often ignored by NYPost or Fox and vice versa because it doesn't fit their narratives. Having a narrative on either side doesn't mean the things being reported on are incorrect or even embellished. But yes, you do need to be aware of the narrative so you can place different weights on news items. Or... Find better news sources.

jjtheblunt 3y ago

I'm from the distant suburbs of Chicago, in a different county, and I believe the author is alluding to frustration about crime and corruption possibly correlated with this person below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Foxx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Foxx

zdragnar 3y ago
I'm from much farther away, and thought it was rather blatant, given that she is the State's Attorney.
Izkata 3y ago
Specifically see under "Reduction in incarceration rates": She just lets criminals go free.
- lesuorac 3y ago
  Sure, lets take a look at that section. > Foxx has directed her office to not prosecute shoplifting cases under $1,000 as felonies. I mean you can still prosecute them as anything else i.e. misdemeanor. Personally, I'm not sure that stealing a backpack with a laptop should count as a felony. If not getting to put somebody away for a decades for stealing an iPhone makes you quit your job; maybe you're not in it to protect and to serve. > declining to prosecute low-level shoplifting and drug offenses and by diverting more cases to alternative treatment programs. So instead of sending people to jail she's sending them to rehab. I'd personally say a very short prison sentence followed by rehab is probably most effective (I mean look at how hard white collar criminals try to avoid prison; it has a powerful effect even if its for <7d). But unless he's going to show that the people in rehab instead of prison are committing these crimes (which it almost always isn't; plenty of fresh criminals available) it's an argument without any evidence. I also don't think firing gunshots in a playground (his actual complain) counts as "low-level shoplifting" as well as crime is increasing everywhere including non-democratic states/counties. She'd never get elected in the bible belt so many he should consider employment there. (note: bible belt has the highest homicide rate [1]). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate#See_also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

thebooktocome 3y ago

> Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, At the time you make bond, you have merely been charged with a crime—you are not a criminal. I’m sure a prosecutor does get tired of having to argue cases against defendants who were able, by virtue of habeas corpus, to prepare a defense. > shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, Things that mitigate real inequities present when the justice system interacts with poor people. > the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, This is a terrible thing to say in a world where police officers have no obligation to serve and extraordinary legal defenses that protect them from almost every form of wrongdoing. > overuse of diversion programs, The United States already incarcerates a relatively large fraction of the world’s children. He would prefer incarcerating more. > intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, This prosecutor has had this power for twenty years, and I’m certain he’s used it freely. He’s likely used it to protect people he feels sympathy toward, and refrained from using it to protect people he feels no sympathy toward. He’s likely used it because he feels overworked or under-appreciated. > all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation. As a prosecutor, he had wide-reaching legal power to make his community a better place. What did he do instead? To hear him tell it, he was the one in prison for twenty years.

DebtDeflation 3y ago
>This is a terrible thing to say in a world where police officers have no obligation to serve and extraordinary legal defenses that protect them from almost every form of wrongdoing. Yeah, the author lost me here. I'm all for law and order when it comes to catching and prosecuting murderers, rapists, kidnappers, armed robbers, etc. However, I've seen FAR too many videos of situations where there was no crime that had been committed and no threat to public safety when a police officer showed up and escalated a non-issue into a serious situation that resulted in someone being killed, beaten, and/or arrested for no real reason. There has to be some sort of middle ground.
- 3y ago

ab_goat 3y ago

The key issue here is the difficult choice between: a. Incorrectly and significantly disrupting people's lives by locking them up pre-trial when many cases up getting acquitted. This can often sink folk into much worse situations than they were before, creating an endless cycle b. Potentially releasing some dangerous criminals back into society while they wait their trials edit: to be clear, I think the likelihood * impact of false positives is way worse than the false negatives

steveBK123 3y ago
One thing with the bail reform movement is that the voters who are asked whether they support it don't necessarily understand the seemingly obvious, but technically non-obvious terms being used. For example in NY, it was sold as only applying to non-violent crimes. So one might say - sure this sound great, obviously we don't need to pre-trial hold non-violent criminals! However technically, as defined in law, theres a lot of things that "sound violent" but are considered non-violent felonies. Second degree manslaughter (125.15) is, for the purposes of NY State law, a non-violent felony. So the next question - what might get a person charged with second degree manslaughter? * Well, a guy recently chocked an erratic mentally ill homeless man to death on the subway was charged with second degree manslaughter only Other historical examples just to name a few- * Speeding 55mph in a 25mph local road (Delancey), killing a pedestrian and fleeing the scene * Guy accidentally shooting a friend with an unregistered gun while playing video games * DUI with kids in the car so badly you flip the car, killing one child * Drunken stealing a truck, driving up 7th Ave and hitting a Bus so fast they killed the driver * Guy overdosing his 10 month old on fentanyl somehow * Cop accidentally shoots a guy in the stairway of a housing project, proceeds to leave and call union rep rather than render assistance, while arguing with his partner not to report the shooting * Drunk driving 90mph in a 25mph, crashing into another drunk driver who was on a suspended license, killing a passenger in the back, and the most either of them got charged with was again, second degree manslaughter
- oerpli 3y ago
  I don't see how any of these cases prove your point. None of these offenders seem to fit a profile of someone that is a threat to public safety.

noodlesUK 3y ago

What I don’t understand about the opponents of things like bail reform is that very few other countries have a similar system to the USA at all. A determination is made about whether the person charged is a flight risk, a danger to the public, etc. If they are determined to meet those criteria, they are remanded. If they don’t, they are bailed. Why does money have to have anything to do with it?

pixl97 3y ago
>Why does money have to have anything to do with it? Short answer: Bounty hunters. If you jump bail, they get part of the bail payment for capturing you. It's a long standing privatization of law enforcement in the US.
- nervousvarun 3y ago
  Also bail bondsman. They provide the bail bond for people who can't afford to pay (which surprise is the majority of people). For a % of course. It's all a bit...predatory.
  - noodlesUK 3y ago
    I think this is the part of the system that I find the most distasteful. If you're charged with a crime, you do everything right, you get bailed, you get found not guilty or the charges are dropped, you don't get the money you paid the bondsman back. It's horrifying.
    - plagiarist 3y ago
      And for Americans living paycheck to paycheck they don't have the option to wait it out. They have to get back to work or be homeless.
    - ddingus 3y ago
      What one can do is pay for their own representation and when acquitted, file a tort to recover financial damages from the entity who picked the fight. That is what I did when I faced this scenario. Takes a long time. Speedy trials suddenly slow down. Pressure to get a person on more charges goes up. Offers get better. Requests for court appearances increase in frequency and more.

aqme28 3y ago

I don't know where exactly in Illinois they live, but violent crime has generally fallen in the state, and is almost certainly much lower than when they moved there. Some local exceptions exist in Chicago, but they keep calling themselves an "Illinois" prosecutor and do not mention the city.

kyrra 3y ago
Chicago is Illinois, you should know that if you live there. The rest of the state doesn't really exist.
- aqme28 3y ago
  Then that kind of reinforces my point that Illinois crime statistics are way down
nervousvarun 3y ago
Agreed he could have been more specific but a Google search confirms his territory is Chicago. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/longtime-chicago-prosecutor-jason-poje-quits-over-crime-surge-leaders-woke-social-experiment/ar-AA1aYwpM https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/longtime-chicago-prosec...
unregistereddev 3y ago
From an editor's note, the author is a Cook County prosecutor. As a former Illinois resident, I can tell you Cook County means Chicago and a cluster of close suburbs.
1123581321 3y ago
In parts of IL the violent crime trend has reversed since 2019-2020, including parts of Chicago (city where the author practiced.)

wffurr 3y ago

There was an earlier comment wondering where the letters author might move to, since Illinois is an average state in terms of violence and crime. Ironically?, Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the country for him to move to if he’s concerned about gun violence, but we also tend to elect progressive reform minded prosecutors that he thinks are the problem.

plagiarist 3y ago
If he goes to Texas it would confirm the impression I got from reading that.
ap99 3y ago
Culture and wealth levels have a bigger impact on crime, in my opinion, than progressive or conservative local politics.
robertlagrant 3y ago
> Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the country for him to move to if he’s concerned about gun violence, but we also tend to elect progressive reform minded prosecutors that he thinks are the problem. Utah looks better [0]. Higher gun ownership %, but lower gun death rate than Massachusetts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States_by_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_Sta...
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Strange, the CDC has Massachusetts as having lower gun death than Utah. The lowest in fact: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/... Utah is ranked just ahead of Florida. Oh, I see, your numbers don’t include suicides, which is the majority of gun deaths.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > Massachusetts would be one of the safest states in the country for him to move to if he’s concerned about gun violence It would be very odd indeed to include suicides in stats of how dangerous it is to live in a state.

bedhead 3y ago

Former Chicagoan here. Grew up there, lived there most of my adult life, raised kids there, and finally, thankfully, moved to another state three years ago. It's easy to pile on, but one of the main things that did it for me was sorta this realization that Chicago is more or less hopeless. There's no willingness to even discuss Chicago's problems honestly, let alone do something about them. The culture there is just too far gone - it's depressing. Was I worried that violent crime was going to imminently find its way to my doorstep? No, not really. But with three kids in Chicago Public Schools (no more dysfunctional, shameful organization exists in this country than CPS) I turned to my wife one day and said, "You know, we don't have to live like this." So we left.

bradleyjg 3y ago
Read the comments on this post. No one here wants to hear it. People in Europe, SV, god-knows-where have all kinds of facts and figures they just spent two minutes googling that prove there’s nothing to see here and Chicago is fine.
- one_level_deep 3y ago
  I live in Chicago and have no idea what you are talking about. The local newspapers and tv are constantly talking about these issues. Crime and CPS were by far the primary discussions in the recent election. Who and where are these people refusing to talk about them?
- djfobbz 3y ago
  Love your comment. Being from the Midwest, I'm in complete disbelief reading some of these comments. They seem to be completely out of touch with reality!
- commandlinefan 3y ago
  There's a comment upstream that says "this person's opinions are similar to those of Fox News and the NY Post, so it should be ignored". That doesn't bode well for the actual people who have to live in Chicago.

jjoonathan 3y ago

> [Public Defenders'] work is as noble as ours. But we have an obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly. I was on Jury Duty last year and every day I had to walk past a tiny decrepit Public Defender office and then past sprawling, spotless floors of Attorney General offices. I probably have the wrong terms, the specifics are fading, but the general meaning of the signs seemed clear enough. What a shameful disgrace. Society doesn't have a thumb on the scale, it has a foot on the scale. No, I don't think shifting the extreme imbalance even further towards Prosecution is going to fix crime. Maybe things are different in Chicago, but I'd want to hear from Defense before just believing a rant from Prosecution.

ddingus 3y ago
Yup. Anyone charged with a crime would be well advised to do whatever it takes to seek council directly, as in finding a way to pay for it. Public defenders are doing noble work. They are also denied the resources necessary to perform that work with the same zeal seen in the prosecution side of the justice system.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
  No, we are not. I’ve worked as a defense attorney. It is was terrifying to see how much leeway and how many extra chances were given to violent criminals. The DAs job is impossible.
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    Maybe you should try being a defendant to actually get a balanced perspective (a good thing to try would be to get yourself arrested for something that you didn't do but is just your word against theirs). For extra experience try doing that whilst being black. For reference, I have being on the receiving end of an entirely unwarranted accusation for a trivial crime in the UK (which is often held up as being a good example of a fair system). It occupied an unbelievable amount of headspace and was hugely stressful. I'm educated, reasonably well off and white. The system felt very very powerful and unpredictable from my position and I was never even arrested (just accused, which is enough for the police to treat you as a perpetrator). If the prosecution had happened and had gone anywhere (it didn't) and I'd been convicted I would have got a small fine, but I was still far too worried that my innocence was insufficient to protect me. All the way through you're treated as though you are guilty, and the accuser is the "victim". Honestly, the only victim in the whole sorry affair was me. I can't imagine what it must feel like if you're on the receiving end of an unwarranted accusation for a more serious crime. Especially if everyone thinks you're guilty because your have priors and "look guilty".

draw_down 3y ago

[dead]

almost_usual 3y ago

How is this tech related?

timbit42 3y ago
Not all hackers hack tech.

mchannon 3y ago

After being railroaded by a dirty prosecutor, I’d like to dispel one trope: Brandolini’s law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, states that it takes 10x the effort to dispel bullshit as it takes to make it. Therefore, every set of bullshit charges takes a public defender 10x the resources to counteract. Any fair system, every fair system, would have public defenders substantially better funded than prosecutors. I think I speak for a good number of Cook county residents when I say: Bye Felicia.

strawhatguy 3y ago
Personally, I think there should NOT be a prosecutor's office and a public defender's office. It should be the same lawyers, and randomly get the cases for or against. That way the resources are in the same 'pot' if you will. Still have to contend with the fact that a mere accusation colors public perception, and so often gives the advantage to the prosecution in the court of public opinion
- mchannon 3y ago
  Perhaps a good idea in theory, it'd be horrible in practice. Enough "horse-trading" goes on as it is (you go easy on client A, I'll offer client B up to you on this other case on a silver platter; that way we both make our numbers and look good). A better idea would be the appointment of a special "evidence master" who holds and controls all evidence and determines who gets to see what evidence, with a bias toward everybody seeing everything. Right now police turn their evidence over to prosecutors and prosecutors determine what the defense (and public) see. If prosecutors don't want them to have something, they don't get it, and no one's ever going to know. I have real trouble believing any society where prosecutions rely on bluffing and brinksmanship to coerce plea bargains is a fair and just one. There should be no plea bargains. There should also be no peremptory juror challenges. In all honesty, I think AI would be a great candidate to replace both prosecutors and defense attorneys. The playing field would finally be level for once. Judges too.
MichaelZuo 3y ago
Aren't you reinforcing the trope instead of dispelling it?

Convolutional 3y ago

There is the war on drugs, locking people in prison due to marijuana transactions. With all the talk of China being a police state, the US has more people incarcerated than China - and China's population is more than four times that of the US. European countries don't have these problems, like the rash of mass shootings we have had in the past few weeks in just Texas. Also these prisons are a sop to rural communities for money and jobs, with prisoners from the cities. The prisoners also count for congressional districts going to these areas but can not vote. Of course there is also the profit making of private prisons. Judges have been found sending innocent people to jail for kickbacks. It is time to solve these problems like Europe does, and one step is incarceration going down to three times the rate of China, as opposed to over four times.

mantas 3y ago
„European“ policy has caveats too. What you call „european“ policy is mostly West europe. That had pretty good cultural hold on crimes. for a while. This method does work for it. But when here in eastern europe got same policies forced down our throats... Here culture is slightly different and many criminals are career criminals and take pride their... line of work. So we get routine re-offenses. Or people commit new crimes while waiting for trial. West seems to have issues with certain parts of their societies that ain't culturally trained to behave too. This doesn't work well if society accepts crime as a respectable line of work. E.g. glorifying criminal „subculture“ and normalising that.
morning-coffee 3y ago
> It is time to solve these problems like Europe does, and one step is incarceration going down to three times the rate of China, as opposed to over four times. But correlation does not imply causation, right? I don't understand how it follows from noting our incarceration rate being higher than another place with less crime, and then reaching the seeming conclusion that the answer, therefore, is to stop putting people in jail.
intrasight 3y ago
> the US has more people incarcerated than China Summary execution keeps incarceration rates down. It also disincentivizes crime.

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

[dead]

anovikov 3y ago

Real solution depends on increasing jail and prison capacity. Why are massive, state-run, gulag-style camps are not in the books? With spare capacity so that every would-be criminal knows there's space for everyone, further deterring them? It must also instill fear and terror in every criminal, including those born and raised in most terrible conditions.

barbazoo 3y ago
Doesn't the US already have the world biggest prison system and the most people in jail/prison. I think the whole concept of it being a deterrent has been debunked.
- DerpyBaby123 3y ago
  I think the comment you replied to was being facetious
- anovikov 3y ago
  Even if it's not a good deterrent, it may solve the problem directly: incarcerate these people and make sure they are too old and sick when they get out, to still be a big problem. Sure US has an overly large prison population but no other developed country is as diverse, it also doesn't have a wide social safety net that works around the problem at the cost of blocking development with insane taxes. It's a country where you either win, or you lose, and the system must ensure that those who lost don't get in the way of those still running.
  - scotty79 3y ago
    I think we should aim at prison capacity of about 90% of the population. Let's face it. About 1% of society can actually live on their own. Another 10% might be able to sustain themselves with work. That leaves about 90% that will eventually end up in jail because of their economic conditions. It's not a bad thing. 10% can watch them, feed them and cloth them, while 1% pays for everything with their pocket money and finally has peace and quiet. /s

vonwoodson 3y ago

[flagged]

Empact 3y ago
> I’ll never understand In activism, people have the capacity for voice and exit. He apparently is exercising both. > Nobody cares what you think The letter being discussed here seems rather to confirm that people do care.

djha-skin 3y ago

> I will not raise my son here. Whenever we look at these situations as HNers there is often armchair reasoning about the situation. The author is not reasoning from an armchair. This is visceral to him. Whether he is right or wrong, we should do him the courtesy of acknowledging his feelings and believing him when he is there and we are not.

zimpenfish 3y ago
> This is visceral to him. It may also just be that, as his LinkedIn shows him now working for a fancy law firm in Wisconsin, the amount of money dangled in front of him was "visceral" and this letter is just an easy cheap shot when he's already out the door.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
5 million people happily live in Cook county. His feelings are misguided and his opinions largely irrelevant.

2devnull 3y ago

If public defenders had the same resources as the persecution, Sam Bankman-Fried wouldn’t need to spend a cent on his defense. I am sure that’s not what we want. We want defenders to have a possibility of winning, not guaranteed success. Most of the defendants are guilty after all.

lowmagnet 3y ago
This is the "I paid for college so why should education be free" argument.

giantg2 3y ago

Wow, bias much? How does this lawyer, who is supposed to be trained in logic, not see the doublespeak here. On one hand they say there are needless prosecutions of police, but then laments the discretion to not prosecute some crimes. Which do you want - to vigorously pursue crimes, or to use discretion? It seems they want discretion, but to only use it with police. It's laughable they think the defenders have an fair chance and even resources (as implied in their mention of the adversarial system and respect for them). I agree that some of the policies listed are problematic. One thing this guy completely misses is that crime is primarily driven by socioeconomic issues. Did the policies in place exacerbate crime? Many likely did. But the majority of the increase in the past few years has been driven by the pandemic and policies around that.

OkayPhysicist 3y ago
>> How does this lawyer, who is supposed to be trained in logic, not see the doublespeak here. We're talking about someone who's job is to persuade people for a living. Why would you doubt the deliberateness of their speech?

fnord77 3y ago

activist DA campaigns are being funded by unaccountable billionaires, and while their intent seems good the results are disastrous, at least in my area: Chesa Boudin and Priscilla Price

lowmagnet 3y ago

Real Clear Politics is a project of The Federalist, funded by Donor's Trust and Richard Uihlein. Do not believe everything they publish.

ProAm 3y ago
This has been posted all over. [1] [1] https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/departing-cook-county-prosecutor-upbraids-kim-foxx-in-searing-exit-letter https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/departing-cook-county...
jeegsy 3y ago
Are you suggesting the letter is fake?
- lowmagnet 3y ago
  I'm not suggesting the letter is fake. I'm suggesting the site has an agenda to do what its "donors" want. The site exists to launder ideas.
nxm 3y ago
Any more so than anything WaPro, NYTimes, CNN or MSNBC produce.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

My estimation of the typical prosecutor or DA was quite low. Then I sat on the grand jury. Before we ever started, he told us that if our hearts saw no crime, we had the discretion to not indict. This was strange, I was of the opinion they wanted to keep such things secret, after all. But he told us the story of a little old grandma, 90 years old, going to the airport and forgetting a Derringer in her purse. They were so fucking lazy. I know what you see on TV, but our grand jury consisted of another on the DA team coming in, giving a 30 second summary of the crimes of the accused, showing us no evidence whatsoever, and then moving on to the next. Probably 25 or 30 of these minimum, before lunch rolled around. We were allowed to ask questions, for which there was always a smarmy answer. "Oh, if you can't make it in, just call, a quorum's 9 so we probably won't even need to bring in an alternate". They did discover a need to bring in an alternate, the morning only 9 of us showed up. I had veto power. Every drug case that they made no claim of violence or gross negligence... no bill. Then I heard the "This isn't justice! You're all temporarily dismissed, until we can get an alternate in here later this afternoon" All because they had a hard-on for some college-aged kids selling weed. I think there was a sizable cash confiscation, but my understanding is that they got to keep the free money anyway. Even if not, I think the legal term is collateral estoppel, that is if they managed to "find" some new evidence they just introduced the case to a new grand jury when our term was up. I didn't really save anyone from anything, unless the prosecutors were truly as lazy as I believed them to be. On another day where it was slow, he sat there bragging about (at least before covid) they'd have 4000 cases a year... and do 30 trials. "We like the trials, they're so fun, it breaks up the monotony". They didn't like trials enough to give them to the other 3970 defendants they charged. Nor were they even clever enough to recognize that the nature of plea deals coerces those defendants to waive their rights to a trial. None of people on his team ever scored 99th percentile on a standardized test while in elementary school, I'd bet money on it. Though there was never an opportunity to ask, I often wondered if it clicked for him that his excuses for prosecuting crimes that shouldn't be crimes sounds an awful lot like the defense of those at Nuremberg. It may be impossible to find justice in our world, but if it is to be found, it must be in the opposite direction of where these people live and work. Deep space, the edge of the visible universe, it's probably not feasible to go far enough away from them to find it. Despite all of this, I have little doubt that if one of them were to quit, they could easily have written an article just like this one. Self-righteous, blind to the fact that they were if not the cause of these problems, then the biggest factor aggravating them. Remember, at the end of the day these assholes won't even do their job, they actively avoid trying to take each case to trial. If pleas aren't forthcoming and a two year stint in county waiting on a date won't cause the accused to budge, they're just as likely to drop it than push forward. They regularly pervert the bail process. They're complicit in turning it into a system of pre-conviction fines. Fuck'em all.

JustSomeNobody 3y ago

You don't fix this at the jail level. You don't fix this at the court level. You don't fix this at the police level. This is a society problem. You want gun toting thugs shooting shit up? Treat people like gun toting thugs! Fix society. Give people a way out of this shit. But no. That's too hard. That takes empathy. And empathy is "woke".

just3ws 3y ago

This has been so deeply politicized in Illinois the last gubernatorial candidates for the Republicans have propagandized the subject so fiercely in Illinois that nuanced debate is nearly impossible. I say this as a person who lives outside Chicago in the same region as one of those rightwing candidates and between McHenry Times rag and the absurd signage leading up to the election it was exhausting and consistenly done in bad faith. This article is an opinion on a right wing bias site that is promoting a key right wing political talking point, so no I do not trust that OP is even working in good faith. This isn't HN, this is something else.

just3ws 3y ago

jfengel 3y ago

It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly. I don't think it "goes without saying" at all. We have an adversarial system. They make it very explicit that neither ethics nor honesty are required. Every lawyer will be very clear that you absolutely, positively need a lawyer for any interaction with the legal system. You cannot assume that the other people will be "evenhanded". It's your lawyer's job to force ethics on them. Without that, it goes without saying that they can get away with behaving unethically. To have it "go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly" would require a completely different legal system than the one we have. Our current one says exactly the opposite, by design. I spoke to a prosecutor recently that in his office, it was spoken out loud that they were to be ethical and evenhanded. But that was not a requirement, and other prosecutor's offices did not follow it. Their job was to be zealous in prosecution, just as the defense's job was to be zealous in defense, and everybody hoped that "justice" would emerge from that somehow.

Ballu 3y ago

And he moved to Madison, WI. Doesnt that city also have crime issues (atleast in media) like Chicago? https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-poje-54b4a818a/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-poje-54b4a818a/

rhaway84773 3y ago

Lol. Considering how stacked the odds are against public defenders and in favor of prosecutors I’d say the winner here is the state Of Illinois that they don’t have to pay severance to get rid of someone who is complaining about having a 20 handicap instead of a 21 handicap.

scotty79 3y ago

> ... we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes. That actually explains a lot. Like blatant disregard for the concept of truth in the entire justice system. From the lowliest convicts to the top judges. When there's competition and relationships are adversarial, the truth is the first victim. "If you are not cheating you, are not trying hard enough." mentality sets firmly in.

_8j50 3y ago

The whole thing is a sham but this guy is nuts to think prosecutors can't pull punches. I would agree with this guy if only I could be allowed to sue him when he over prosecuted or under prosecuted. What kind of a prosecutor does not appreciate prosecutorial discretion? "The people" can fight for themselves by voting and they voted for his bosses. Fighting for the people means honoring their electoral decisions! There is a lot being said between the lines here that I won't get into but this guy leaving the state and his job is a good thing for everyone involved. You know, many developed countries are far more lenient on bail bonds,sentencing,etc... than even illinois. But the fact of the matter is, criminals can get caught and do get locked up even in his state but the police and his colleagues are worried about locking up drug dealers and users and overpolicing minorities to meet quotas. He and his cop buddies suck at their jobs and like their peers in other big cities they are conservative and blame their own incompetence on liberal elected politicians whom the people support. Criminals they go after can't afford good lawyers like the ones that make ADA and overworked and resource starved public defenders can only do so much and this guy has the nerve to claim they are equally resourced like prosecutors are! The more I think about it the more this guy pisses me off. Who told him locking up criminals and preventing victims was his job? His job is to prosecute in accordance with his elected boss's policies! Not appointed, but elected!