Chicago City Wire

Kim Foxx, states' attorney of Cook County, has announced that she will not be running for a third term in 2024.

“I’m really proud of the work that we have done on running the second largest prosecutor’s office in the middle of a pandemic and still doing the work,” she told the Chicago City Wire recently. “And I work with a really incredible group of prosecutors who put this system on their back because the obligation to be ready for trial falls on us. And they’ve done that, whether it is getting a guilty (verdict) in the murder of Commander Paul Bauer or the murder of Tyshawn Lee or the countless other cases whose names don’t make headlines, our prosecutors are holding people accountable.”

Foxx defeated Republican Candidate Patrick O’Brien during the November 2020 general election, a Ballotpedia report said.

First elected in 2016 at the height of the fallout stemming from the murder of teen Laquan McDonald at the hands of Chicago Police, supporters of Foxx argue her more than six-years in office have paved the way for those in power to be smarter on crime, including pushing policies that stand to have lasting impact; a recent Chicago Tribune article said. She defeated Republican candidate Christopher Pfannkuche in the 2016 general election.

Foxx rose to power by easily knocking off then-incumbent Anita Alvarez in a campaign that centered on what she cast as a broken criminal justice system. Before that, Foxx served as chief of staff for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and spent 12 years as a Cook County prosecutor, primarily working on cases involving young people.

During her six years in office, one of Foxx’s more controversial moments stemmed from a case involving former "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett, who claimed that he was attacked by two men who yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him. Eventually his story fell apart, but even though Foxx had recused herself from the case, controversy swirled after her office moved to drop all charges against the actor.