COLUMN: If elected, Eileen Burke will create First Amendment Prosecution Unit in Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office
COLUMN: If elected, Eileen Burke will create First Amendment Prosecution Unit in Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office (Cook County, IL) — Eileen O’Neill Burke, Democrat nominee for Cook County State’s Attorney, indicates she has her sights set on prosecuting pro-life activists for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Bob Fioretti, her Republican opponent in this election, has pledged is to enforce the law as written.
A crucial election in Illinois in 2024 is for Cook County State’s Attorney. That office has the prime responsibility for enforcing the criminal law in Chicago. The shootings and murders in Chicago are reported these days as a sports box score. In 2024, there have been over 400 murders and more than 1,200 people shot.
Cook County State’s Attorney Impacts Everyone in Illinois
A normal citizen would expect that murders, shootings and crime chasing people and businesses out of Illinois would be Burke’s focus. However, she advised her supporters that it’s “it’s wrong to paint her as the tough-on-crime choice”. Though she is running for Cook County prosecutor, her approach to the job impacts everyone in Illinois.
Ms. Burke has pledged to be no different than incumbent Kim Foxx of Jussie Smollet infamy. Foxx is as responsible as anyone for the crime in and negative reputations of Chicago and Illinois. Burke has pledged more of the same.
The failure to enforce criminal law in Cook County burdens all Illinois citizens. Beyond the damage to Chicago’s reputation and quality of life, taxes increase because of the loss of people and jobs by the state’s principal economic engine. The government doesn’t downsize, it just increases raises taxes on everyone that stays.
Enter the “Choice Protection Unit” or First Amendment Prosecution Unit
Though Burke won’t be tough on crime and protect citizens in Cook County, she has pledged to monitor members of the pro-life community who exercise their First Amendment rights. She has proposed a Choice Protection Unit which might be better named the First Amendment Prosecution Unit. Since she believes she would have the power to target one group with whom she disagrees, there would be nothing to stop her from prosecuting others that she disagrees with.
The State’s Attorney’s duty is to prosecute violations of law brought to by law enforcement and enforce the law as written. Local prosecutors run amok wreak havoc by bending the law for a political agenda. Burke has promised to bend the law for an agenda.
Her planned “Choice Protection Unit” will protect whom from what? The only possible purpose is to protect a particular audience from a message that Ms. Burke disagrees with. The “unit” will exist to discourage and chill the exercise of citizens’ First Amendment rights through targeted criminal prosecution.
The Disturbing Plans for the Choice Protection Unit
Burke’s description of this unit includes the following troubling provisions in bold:
- “The Choice Protection Unit (CPU) will be specially trained and ready to handle a wide variety of civil actions, municipal ordinance violations, misdemeanors and felonies.” State’s Attorneys DO NOT prosecute municipal ordinance violations. This is done by a city’s lawyers. The only purpose for such training is to pile on, refer extra charges against and deter activity protected by the First Amendment freedom of speech and religion provisions.
- “BOND COURT, MISDEMEANORS AND FELONIES: Each unit will have the statutes and case law that apply to all possible charges ranging from unlawful picketing, noise violations, assaults, obstruction of the public way, stalking, and terrorism.” Having criminal prosecutors prepared for all possible charges is to chill First Amendment freedoms. The state’s attorney is to evaluate facts presented by police or victims and determine if proper charges can be proven in court beyond a reasonable doubt. Preparing for “all possible charges” (including terrorism) is a mindset to discourage the exercise of constitutional rights by citizens with whom the state’s attorney disagrees.
Train Prosecutors to Prosecute Crimes Not Advance Agendas
There is plenty of violent crime in Chicago and Cook County without diverting prosecutor’s time and training to a focus on citizens exercising constitutional rights. This is not a duty of the State’s Attorney found in any Illinois statute or the Illinois Constitution.
Limited resources should be devoted to training on prosecuting shootings, murders, other violent and property crime. Property crimes have been overlooked by Foxx, and if elected will be overlooked by Burke. Such decisions result in communities in Chicago that are food or pharmacy “deserts” because no business can survive the crime and provide service to the community.
The State’s Attorney’s resources should be devoted to addressing actual crimes, not figuring out how to charge people exercising their First Amendment rights as terrorists.
A responsible approach to the office is, as Bob Fioretti promises, enforce the law as written.
COLUMN: If elected, Eileen Burke will create First Amendment Prosecution Unit in Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office
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