CBS News 60 Minutes report was catalyst for Kim Foxx's conviction review unit
In 2012 then CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Byron Pitts came to Chicago to explore the peculiar distinction of Chicago as the capital of false confessions.
In that report he interviewed seven men, known now as the Englewood Four and the Dixmoor Five who as teens were convicted of rape and murder after being forced to confess to crimes that they didn't commit.
Pitts reported that Chicago had twice as many documented false confession cases as any city in the country partly due to police interrogation techniques, which included telling the teens that if they confessed they could go home.
He also reported on the unwillingness of then state's attorney Anita Alvarez to acknowledge that prosecutors for these cases got it wrong.
It was that broadcast twelve years ago that led Kim Foxx in 2016 to run for office on a campaign to review wrongful conviction claims.
"I saw my predecessor on television doing an interview on 60 Minutes about the Englewood Four. They were four young men who were charged with a rape and murder and there was no physical evidence to connect them to it. In fact there was DNA evidence that connected it to someone else," said Foxx, who is leaving the office December 1 after two terms.
"When I saw Anita Alvarez refuse to acknowledge getting it wrong I knew when I came into office that would be a priority of mine to try to fix as much wrong as I could."
Foxx shared this story at a dinner convened September 30 to recognize Wrongful Conviction Day which also marked 61 days before the end of her second term as the state's attorney for the second busiest prosecuting office in the country.
During the eight years of her tenure Foxx thus far has vacated convictions of 253 people after a review of the evidence in the case revealed false confessions, police misconduct, lack of evidence and actual innocence of crimes for which people have spent years and even decades in prison.
Foxx offered hugs and good wishes at the dinner, which served as an event for people to thank Foxx for her focus on reviewing wrongful conviction claims.
In addition to Chicago becoming known as the capital of false confessions, Illinois has the dubious distinction of being the capital of wrongful convictions. The state has led the nation in the number of exonerations in the past five years.
"There's only one generation of Kim Foxx – you hear me," Pastor Phil Jackson, founder and chief executive of The Firehouse Community Art Center said at the event.
"We have been blessed beyond measure with Kim Foxx. She put in a good fight."
Earlier that day activists rallied outside of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to ask Foxx to vacate more wrongful convictions in the days leading up to her departure on December 1.
Foxx encouraged an audience of about 100 activists, exonerees and their family members to continue the fight.
"If it were my child and I believed that they were not guilty I would be just as relentless and keep my foot on that person's neck as you all have kept your foot on mine."
