After Outcry, State Attorney Kim Foxx Defends Smollett Decision But Suggests He’s “Accountable”
“There Is A Lot Of Confusion…”
When asked about the “angst” that Chicago’s mayor and superintendent have expressed about her office’s decision, Foxx replied with this:
Kim Foxx- “You know, I think that there is a lot of confusion. For people who do this work every day, who recognize what the charges are — this is a Class 4 felony — We recognize that the likelihood that someone would get a prison sentence for a Class 4 felony is slim. … There’s some people who were never gonna be satisfied unless Mr. Smollett spent many nights in prison, and then there were others who believed that the charging of 16 counts of disorderly conduct was excessive. And so I think this is allowing us an opportunity to be able to look at how do we do these cases overall?”
She then compared Jussie Smollett to a non-celebrity…
KF: “If you took the celebrity out of this and looked at Class 4 felonies, or if you were able to isolate out what happens with other disorderly conduct cases when the defendant is not a celebrity, and to see if this is out of line, and I think that gives greater clarity.
When the interviewer pointed out that Jussie’s reportedly false hate crimes has had a far greater “social impact” than a non-celebrity’s, Foxx seemingly deflected -from Jussie’s reported actions, to Chicago’s murder rates, etc.:
KF- “We deal with a lot of things in this city…shootings that outpace other major cities, sexual assault, sexual violence, domestic violence. And it is not to diminish that what Mr. Smollett was alleged to have done did have an impact on people who are actual victims of hate crime, did have an impact on how people perceived our city. But he was charged with a Class 4 felony. …
And again, in the justice system, we have to be mindful and careful that we have to give due process that we would give to a celebrity or a non-celebrity…. The fact that people pick and choose which cases are most important I think breaks my heart.”
