Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx Says She Stands By Jussie Smollett Plea Deal

TMZ

Kim Foxx is feeling vindicated by the Illinois State Supreme Court's decision to overturn Jussie Smollett's conviction ... saying she still believes her office made the right call by offering him a plea deal.

Transcript

00:00So, your reaction, this was a unanimous decision.

00:05I'm unsurprised.

00:07I took criminal procedure my first year of law school, and so I understood double jeopardy.

00:13And the fact of the matter is, Mr. Smollett had gotten a plea arrangement, he fulfilled

00:19his obligations, the case was dismissed.

00:22And so the appointment of a special prosecutor, the re-indictment, I knew from the very beginning

00:27that that amounted to double jeopardy.

00:30And I would also say that Dan Webb, who was a special prosecutor, is one of the preeminent

00:34legal minds in the country, and was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois,

00:41worked on Iran-Contra, that Dan Webb also knows Criminal Procedure 101.

00:47And he knew from the outset that this was double jeopardy and did it anyway.

00:51So why do you think he went forward?

00:55TMZ has covered this story since January 29th of 2019.

01:00It made national attention, international attention.

01:05There was a lot of outrage locally about this.

01:10The story was viewed as so absurd.

01:13So there were people who were frustrated by the outcome, that Mr. Smollett was allowed

01:18to do community service and forfeit his bail, and others who wanted more from that.

01:24And as a result of that outrage that we were starting to see in the community, I think

01:28the response from Mr. Webb was to forfeit what he knew was legally appropriate and appease

01:36what amounted to an angry mob.

01:38There are really two issues here.

01:39There's a legal issue.

01:41And frankly, I agree with you.

01:43This always seemed like double jeopardy to me.

01:46And on the legal side, there should never have been a trial.

01:49But there was one.

01:51And factually, which is different, factually, there was a full trial with witnesses and

01:58a jury unanimously convicted him.

02:01And he was sentenced to 150 days in prison, in jail.

02:09Knowing now what you know and seeing that process play out, do you think you were too

02:15lenient by doing 15 hours of community service and $10,000 forfeiture, given what you saw

02:22in the trial?

02:24Not at all.

02:25What Jesse was convicted of was a disorderly conduct.

02:29And I think people have to remember that he wasn't charged or prosecuted for staging the

02:34hoax with the Olsen-Dario brothers.

02:36What he was prosecuted for, charged with, initially indicted by our office, was filing

02:41a false police report.

02:43That's what he was charged with.

02:44The filing of a false police report, which is our lowest level felony.

02:49It's one step above a misdemeanor.

02:51And in cases like that, generally we do a diversion.

02:55You don't get jail time if you don't have what we call a publishable background, if

03:00he didn't have a long criminal record.

03:02Most of those cases are resolved this way.

03:05What has happened, though, is because of Mr. Smollett's celebrity, we saw someone get a

03:10jail sentence that would never have been given in this type of case.

03:14And more importantly, Harvey, you know, again, back to Criminal Procedure 101, our office

03:20couldn't offer Jesse a deal if we didn't believe he had done the thing of which we

03:24accused him.

03:26It's unethical for us to say, give me your bond, do community service, and we don't believe

03:32that you're guilty.

03:33We can't even enter into an agreement with you unless we believe that the evidence would

03:37support a conviction.

03:39So we weren't surprised that he was convicted.

03:42The evidence that we indicted him with was the same evidence that they used in that trial.

03:46Why do you think he got 150 days from the judge?

03:50If you listen to the ruling of the judge, and I've known this judge, I've seen this

03:55judge for years.

03:56I was a prosecutor in this office for 12 years.

03:58I've served as the chief prosecutor for the last eight.

04:01I've never seen someone in a class for a felony give such a dissertation before a ruling.

04:07I mean, it was beyond the pale.

04:09It was as though we were filming this for Law & Order airing tonight on NBC.

04:16That's not even how our system works.

04:18That is not—if you come into a courtroom in Cook County, what you saw play out in that

04:23courtroom and the theatrics that were involved is not what happens every day.

04:30That was, I believe, performative.

04:33People were frustrated.

04:34Now we finally think that something has happened, and I'm going to do something that is beyond

04:39the pale.

04:40It was beyond the pale.

04:41Do you feel vindicated that, as your term is about to end, that the Supreme Court came

04:47back with this decision and basically said that this never should have happened, this

04:54trial?

04:55Yeah.

04:55I mean, I said right after Jesse was sentenced that I'd never seen anything like this, and

04:59I wrote an op-ed in our local newspaper, the Chicago Sun-Times, saying that this was a

05:04kangaroo prosecution and a circus.

05:07And so for the last almost three years since he was sentenced, I have been waiting for

05:12justice to be served.

05:14And by that, I mean we should not allow our criminal court systems to be contorted to

05:22fit popular opinion.

05:23The Constitution stands for a reason, and even if we disagree with the outcomes, we

05:29cannot throw out our Constitution for political purposes.

05:33And as people are in knots right now about what happens with the next administration

05:40coming in federally and wanting to protect our rights, that was happening on the local

05:45level.

05:46And so, yeah, nine days before my term ends, does it feel good to be affirmed that what

05:52I knew in March of 2019?

05:54Yes.

05:55Am I sad that it's cost us millions of dollars and resources and taken away from the critical

06:02work that we do on crime and violence in Cook County?

06:05Yes, I am.

06:06But I'm grateful that the system worked out the way it was supposed to.

06:10We're now seeing DAs running for election saying, if I'm elected, I'll prosecute so

06:17and so.

06:18This feels like a very troubling time just in terms of the responsibilities of a public

06:28prosecutor.

06:29You're absolutely right, Harvey.

06:31It is not lost on me.

06:34I've seen some people campaigning on what I'm going to do as a prosecutor.

06:37This shouldn't be political, but it is.

06:40We run for election for these seats.

06:43And what I have been disappointed by is that we are guided by our oath to uphold the Constitution,

06:48both our state Constitution and the federal Constitution.

06:51And that should be our guiding principle.

06:54And as frustrated and angry and the vitriol that I received in the wake of the decision

06:59that was made with Jesse, I stand by we had a constitutional responsibility and not for

07:07me to appease the masses.

07:09And we've gotten too far adrift of that.

07:11If we stick to the fundamentals of the Constitution, and as a prosecutor, the standards say that

07:17you are a minister of justice, just do justice and not worry about the politics and the silly

07:23season that I think we find too many of us in.

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