Chicago Prosecutor Quits After 20 Years, Slams Leaders for Putting City ‘On a Course to Disaster’
“I will not raise my son here.”
Jason Poje, a felony trial attorney in Cook County, quit after 20 years due to Chicago’s downward spiral caused by the leader’s “stupid” policies.
Poje wrote to his colleagues:
After 20 years, I always kind of figured an email like this would start with “It is with a heavy heart that I leave…” The truth is, I can’t get out of here fast enough.
—
And yet, I’m leaving. Why could that be? The simple fact is that this State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster. And the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predicable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt.
Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, overuse of diversion programs, intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation.
Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx, backed by George Soros, became nationally known after she messed up the case against Jussie Smollett.
We also learned that Foxx’s office let a killer of a 16-year-old off the hook.
The Chicago Tribune discovered Foxx dropped more felony cases than her predecessor. 25,183 people saw their felony charges disappear under Foxx.
Foxx’s office let off two teenagers with misdemeanors after they crashed a car they stole and killed a 6-month-old baby, and injured three others.
Poje said he will not raise his son in Chicago thanks to the policies implemented by the state and Foxx’s office:
Many years ago my family found a nice quiet corner of the suburbs. Now my son, who is only 5, hears gunfire while playing at our neighborhood park, and a drug dealer is open-air selling behind my house (the second one in two years). If it were just me to consider, I’d stick it out. I’ve been through stupid State’s Attorney policies before. But this Office’s complete failure to even think for a moment before rushing into one popular political agenda after another has put my family directly in harm’s way.
The current people in charge of this state, including the [State’s Attorney’s Office] suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding…we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes. Defense attorneys, legal aid clinics, Public Defenders, defendant advocate groups…they fight like hell to protect the rights of criminal defendants. And they should. Their work is as noble as our’s. But we have an obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly. When both sides vigorously defend their positions, a balance is reached between protecting rights while preserving some sort of order and safety. Once we start doing too much of the defense’s job, once we pull our punches, once we decide that it’s worth risking citizens’ lives to have a little social experiment, that balance is lost. The unavoidable consequences are what we are witnessing in real time, an increase in crime of all kinds, businesses and families pulling up stakes, and the bodies piling up; the whole time with a State’s Attorney who insists that there is nothing to see here, and if there is it must be someone else’s fault. And then they wonder why they cannot retain experienced prosecutors or even hire new ones…it’s because any true prosecutor recognizes the importance of this balance, and that they will not be permitted to be a prosecutor under this administration.
I will not raise my son here. I am fortunate enough to have the means to escape, so my entire family is leaving the State of Illinois. I grew up here, my family and friends are here, and yet my own employer has turned it into a place from which I am no longer proud to be, and in which my son is not safe.
Foxx’s office has hemorrhaged attorneys since she took office. By October 2022, the office had lost 235 people since July 2021.
James Murphy, a veteran assistant state’s attorney, resigned last July. His departure was a huge blow to Foxx’s office. Murphy penned a heated resignation letter with similar feelings as Poje.
Foxx said she will not seek a third term in 2024.
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Comments
Escaped Illinois a year and a half ago – not $#!+cago itself, but the suburbs was bad enough with the crazy property taxes and the constant nickel-and-diming by the State of Illinois. Couple that with the horrendous reign of King Madigan and the neverending money grabs, and it’s enough to send any sane person looking for greener and friendlier pastures.
I miss the Midwest terribly, but I just couldn’t take Illinois any more. If only $#!+cago (nickname: “City that Smirks”) would sink beneath the waves of Lake Michigan, then decent people could make a living there once again.
I am from Wisconsin, born in north raised in Milwaukee
I miss it very much, it is in my soul. My last of my family, my sister died 4 years ago. I have been back a few times since, but it’s not the same when friends and family are gone
But I love Wisconsin, always will. Up until my sister died I was there often and when I would land and get off the plane, I felt like I had come home again
Left 45 years ago…
If he’s actually a professional, he probably felt like the Maytag repairman. Especially since the state of Illinois basically decriminalized everything that’s usually considered a crime in a society.
This is of greatest importance. It is not just Joe Biden ruining the country, but the Democrat Party and a few enabling Establishment RINO’s.
I’m concerned that eventually, the Democrats and the media will throw Biden under the bus and lay blame for the sorry state our country is in on him, rather than the Democrat/Leftist policies and big government actions that he has furthered.
Of course they will, he’s an asset of China
Next one in line, batter up
You think Chicago’s a cesspool? try NY City (The “c” to be pronounced as in special).
Or Baltimore or Detroit or Gary or Camden or Newark or…
All HAD industry. All now have a majority demographic voting for handouts and anarchy.
Since Kim Foxx is not running for reelection, maybe he should run for her office.
I would guess he knows he could not win. Unwilling to tell the lies needed and if he won and started putting people in prison they would remove him.
Yeah, he would have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. Chicago is corrupt to it’s core and has been for many decades. Elections cannot be won without the backing of ‘the machine.’ I fled the state of Illinois at the age of 18 as soon as I graduated from high school. I can remember, even as a little boy, having a visceral, physical feeling of revulsion at the level of political corruption in that state. But what disgusted me even more was the way the citizens embraced it, were even proud of it in a way. Yuck, no thanks.
Chicago will soon look like a combination of Detroit and Venezuela. The illegal immigrants are learning you can steal stuff and walk free. Way to go Dems.
https://cwbchicago.com/2023/05/chicago-venezuelan-migrant-crisis-man-arrested-three-times.html
The current people in charge of this state, including the [State’s Attorney’s Office] suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding…
Actually, Poje is the one who is suffering from a fundamental misunderstanding. The death spiral the state is locked in is not because of stupidity or carelessness. On the contrary: these officials have loudly and openly announced their goals and beliefs: rapists, thieves, robbers, carjackers, pedophiles and murderers are political dissidents and heroes who should be freed from their unjust imprisonment. In the eyes of these officials anyone who opposes them are the real criminals.
I am mystified how those like Poje can be so close to the source of this monstrous evil and still be unable to see it.
“When both sides vigorously defend their positions, a balance is reached between protecting rights while preserving some sort of order and safety. Once we start doing too much of the defense’s job, once we pull our punches, once we decide that it’s worth risking citizens’ lives to have a little social experiment, that balance is lost.”
——–
This is the key point; I totally agree with Mr. Poje, with regard to this notion. A prosecutor’s job is to prosecute criminals and to see justice done. Yes, that job should be accomplished consistent with the profession’s ethical canons, but, that doesn’t mean evincing sympathy for criminals, refraining from prosecuting criminals where evidence supports prosecution, due to “social justice” diktats, and, generally coddling criminals.
This is what happens when you have radical prosecutors who have no intent on prosecuting perpetrators of violent crime elected thanks to Soros money
I feel your pain Jason. I grew up in Dearborn outside Detroit. The nuts are in charge.
Fortunately the Navy moved me around and I ended up in Nashville. The radical crazies haven’t completely taken over here like they have Memphis, yet.
The pace has quickened almost out of fear of failure but the Democrat party is becoming successful nihilists. Self elimination would be good for the party and the nation but only if it happens fast and permanent.
The news reports and Democrat spokesmen blame the Republicans for all the problems in this country. So keep voting Democrat. And that is what they will do till their dying day—and beyond.
True. Republicans have always been a soft headed target. Dems get angry at us for impeding their nihilist impulses. They never let us forget when we are wrong and will never forgive us when we are right. The latter is what is going on now. May their “dying day” come soon and fully.
If it took this person 20 years to reach this conclusion, then he likely has a bit of woke disposition, himself. He should maybe give St. Louis a try for a decade or two. Lots of Dems to vote for there.
Oh, my. Do the lawbreakers have any readily discernible characteristic?
I have studied that question and determined it to be a true puzzlement.
Illinois cannot be fixed!
There is no hope for Illinois.
Illinois is suffering from massive unfunded pension liabilities.
In 2011, Illinois adopted rules for new hire fire fighters to have reduced pension.
There is a bill that would reverse the 2011 rule and cost Chicago taxpayers an extra $3 Billion.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/5/6/23712911/firefighters-pension-bills-chicago-taxpayers-3-billion-cost-lightfoot-martwick-biden-bennett
Just wait, IL and CA and the other shit-hole Dim states will came hat-in-hand to the Fed Govt looking for a bail-out. They’ll get it and we’ll all be on the hook to pay for their corruption and moronic collectivist bullshit.
Not once the bottom falls out and our currency is worth a Weimar deutchmark.
Pretty frightening what happens when you allow decisions to displace from their consequences. We’ve known this in govt schemes forever; extra obvious after early 20th-century urban renewal. (We’re demonstrating lately that we’re still good at turning any city into Baltimore on demand, regardless of that it has going for it. Go, us!)
Who, really has skin in the game? Maybe you get to have an opini on if you have skin in the game?
I, myself, am a fan of hypothetical multi-option, opt-in / buy-in, co-op governance for All The Things. Only folks with chips in the consequences and the doing get a voice. You are impacted, but can’t do — we who can may decide to help you, but that isn’t up to you. Doers who aren’t impacted don’t get to decide either — they should probably get their therapy some less dangerous way.
I *think*(*) that will converge better on better results. However, I know the difference between my hopeful speculations, and the really real world. Until it’s tried, who knows. So, try it in the small. Replace bits of the old way with the new, new thing that’s shown to work better.
This is how complex systems development works; if you want the complex system you are developing to work. If your payoff is something else, well, keep doing what you’re doing. If you’re good at it, there a retirement to Martha’s Vineyard in your future.
Our Accidental Overlords don’t get their payoff from the stuff they propose actually working, but we’ve known that for a while.
“Only folks with chips in the consequences and the doing get a voice.”
Yeah, and then the people who decide “who that is” rule you.
Cornell appoints a “free speech panel” made up of five DEI supporters and zero free-speech activists.
Greenies “sue” EPA for something they want, EPA rolls over and consents, citizens in the affected area never get a chance to open their mouths. There goes your hunting cabin and your gas stove.
Thousands of people want dozens of courts to rule on election violations, courts decide they have no skin in the game (standing).
It’s all a mug’s game. If good government were this straightforward, humanity would have figured it out by now.