Frank Chapman: Despite obstacles Kim Foxx kept promise to vacate wrongful convictions

In a letter published in the TRiiBE, Frank Chapman, community organizer, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and education director an field organizer of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression says Chicago must build upon the legacy of former Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx. Here is an excerpt of his letter.

On her campaign website in 2016, Foxx pronounced, “Cook County is the wrongful conviction capital of the United States.” 

She came into office with a promise to the movement that she would change the CCSAO, that she would look at the cases of the wrongfully convicted. Shortly after she took office, she met with over 20 families of those murdered by the police and those wrongfully convicted. She promised those families that her Conviction Integrity Unit and her office would be used to getting justice for those who were locked up for crimes they had not committed. 

So what happened? Was this just another case of a politician making a promise in order to get elected and then, once elected, reneging on that promise? No, that ain’t what happened.

When Foxx assumed the port of power and was sworn in, she found herself in a situation where her entire office was against what she was trying to do. She had to make staffing changes that were meant to give the Conviction Integrity Unit some real integrity because they didn’t have any. They had been doing virtually nothing to help the wrongfully convicted to get free of convictions that were clearly wrong. 

Two former Chicago mayors, Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel, admitted that torture had gone on in Chicago. Both made apologies to the families who were victimized by this torture, but neither one of them did anything to help the people to get out. 

We had to fight for a reparations ordinance, which was eventually passed, but were we supported by the mayor in fighting for that ordinance? No. We had to protest down at City Hall almost on a weekly basis, including sit-ins in the lobbies. 

There was a mass movement which included We Charge Genocide, the People’s Law Office, Black Youth Project 100, Assata’s Daughters, Black Lives Matter–Chicago, and CAARPR to get those reparations passed. Out of those reparations came the Torture Justice Center we now have today.

So, what were the accomplishments during Kim Foxx’s tenure over an eight-year period? 

According to Foxx’s final report, 248 wrongful convictions cases have been overturned with the help of the Conviction Review Unit, formerly the Conviction Integrity Unit. A large number of those cases being survivors of Jon Burge’s Midnight Crew.

We feel at this moment that there’s a dire need to make sure that we consolidate and move forward on these historic changes. In meetings with the staff Foxx brought into the SAO with her, the Chicago Alliance was told the staff knows that the hundreds of exonerated cases “are only the tip of the iceberg.”

With new State’s Attorney Eileen Burke coming in, we still have the iceberg. 

There are hundreds of people who are still living with convictions, many of them tortured into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit. We must not be diverted or distracted from the tasks at hand, which is to get Eileen Burke to vacate or exonerate those hundreds of cases who are still in prison who have been wrongfully convicted.

We must not overlook the role of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) in relation to Kim Foxx not running for re-election a third time. In her own words, she had been harassed by them. We saw their demonstrations against her where they hurled racial epithets at her. We counter protested them. We know the FOP did everything they could to intimidate, harass, and drive her out of office.

We must also make these demands of Governor J.B. Pritzker; just because a case is in court, doesn’t mean the governor has no role. Howard Morgan was in court, Gerald Reed was in court, and we got a commutation of sentence in both cases. This demonstrates to us that it also makes good political sense to put pressure on the governor to release these prisoners by executive clemency or a commutation of sentence. That shouldn’t be overlooked, and we never have overlooked that.

Going forward, we will continue our work, and we’re going to intensify it. 

We’re going to unite even more of the families of torture survivors and families of victims and survivors of other police crimes, whether it be murder or police brutality. 

This is our agenda: to keep Kim Foxx’s legacy alive by waging a relentless campaign to free them all.