Kim Foxx is the Cook County State’s Attorney. She was born in Chicago and grew up in the Cabrini-Green housing project. She defeated incumbent Anita Alvarez in 2016.
Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge says the new rules he imposed on bond court have driven down the number of pretrial detainees ordered to post cash to be released from custody. “The new system is doing just what I had promised you it would do,” he tells Cook County commissioners at Friday hearing.
One-month report card on new rules: Fewer suspects were being held pretrial, but some still sent to jail because they could not afford bail.
The judges’ attorney said a new bond court rule adopted by Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans has made the issue moot.
Omar Williams was detained for five years, eight months and twelve days on charges of murder. In less than two hours, 12 jurors acquitted him. Williams’s case offered a striking view of just how slowly Cook County’s wheels of justice can move, how askew justice can go and the toll it can take on the lives of those caught up in the system.
A rare display unfolded in the criminal courthouse last week when a prosecutor angrily charged a judge had wrongly held a pregnant woman in custody without a prompt hearing.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Evans announced a new policy today that will require judges to consider what an arrestee can pay before setting a cash bond amount. The measure goes into effect September 18, 2017.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on Wednesday jumped into the issue of bail reform, announcing that her office would actively support agreed upon requests by public defenders that judges free defendants who remain in custody because they are unable to post bonds up to $1,000.
An incumbent Cook County State’s Attorney has not been defeated in a primary since at least 1896. There is a message there: Anita Alvarez should resign now.