“Pedophile with 4 victims 10 counts. Washed up celeb who lied to cops, 16 (counts),” she continued, referring to singer R. Kelly.
Can I safely assume she’s referring to two different people, and R Kelly is the first one? Cuz it isn’t clear from the way that’s written.
This is all very weird. Smollett obviously has some issues deserving of compassion and may be in need of some counseling, to say the least. But legal approaches taking that into account could have been developed in a plea deal of some sort along the way. Approaches ought to stem from applying the law, including precedent, not from considering optics before or after decisions are made. This prosecutor’s office seems not have access to, or not availed itself of, experienced legal thinking. Maybe they’ll rethink t his and actually file some charges.
This reminds me of what a lawyer friend told me some time ago. After passing the bar exam, 80% of attorneys never look up anything. They just play “let’s make a deal,” while billing by the hour. Prosecutors and defense attorneys and judges are all in the same club. If something goes awry, no worries, usually. You just try another approach. It’s telling that in the legal profession, copyright does not exist. They copy and paste anything and everything from any legal filing, without attribution. Anyway, by this accounting, it’s often necessary to get to the appeals court stage before people start having to look stuff up, write legal briefs in support of arguments, etc.
outgoing Mayor Rahm Emanuel has expressed…
Just. Go.
Kim Foxx could not have handled this any worse if she had tried. Pure, utter incompetence and dishonesty. Smollett was given a secret, sweetheart deal for no apparent reason – and contrary to Foxx, that is NOT how these kind of cases are handled. That being said, I don’t ascribe some nefarious purpose or corruption to Foxx – just incompetence and stupidity. Even worse, as utterly foolish as the handling of the matter was, the claim that she and her colleagues were shocked by the backlash evidences an even more breathtaking level of stupidity on their part.
Long-term, she will not survive this – if she even makes it the next election, she’s done.
Compared to the obvious injustice in our system, this is a nothing burger. They didn’t have a case. Simple as that. If he were white would the reaction be the same? Rahm Emmanual sealed his political career with his response.
I think you’re misreading this — Foxx attempting to turn this into a case of racism is not playing well here.
I don’t think this is racism. Our justice system is racist in many cities and the response by Emmanual and others has a racist taint.
This Smollett guy is an idiot but try googling “white woman falsely accuses black man/men of raping her” sometime. Apparently it’s a bit of a thing-one would expect Smollett’s punishment to be at least a bit less severe than someone making a false rape accusation.
Knowing Chicago, I’ll just bet it isn’t.
I don’t know Foxx’s history in the State’s Attorney’s Office - that was after my time. But the case really should have been charged as a misdemeanor, and settled for restitution and a misdemeanor conviction. I never could understand the overcharging in the case.
Smollett has a similar in his background, so supervision (basically an expungeable conviction) would have been inappropriate. Going for the felonies was always a reach. But a pure dismissal? Bullshit.
“There’s really no planning for this,” Magats responded. “It’s the right decision.”
Dropping charges in a charged case?
Who could possibly anticipate any blowback? “We’re lawyers Jim, not psychics!” 
Sounds like the DA’s office could use a whole lotta sunlight.