Before we even quote the article, let's just lay this out there - Police CANNOT charge felonies in Cook County. Almost every single felony charge must go through Felony Review, a construct unique to Cook County and Rockford if we aren't mistaken.
It is a method that appears to let the Cook County State's Attorney "try" a case before a judge is even involved, thereby leading to a supposedly higher conviction rate and greasing the skids for reelection chances. It also provides countless well paying patronage jobs for the connected bottom-of-the-barrel law school grads who can't find actual employment or don't want to spend years researching legal briefs.
It also leads to a dismal prosecution rate of felonies, everything being bargained down to misdemeanors or labeled "continuing investigation" while clearance rates hover around 25%.
Once again, Anita's minions cost people their lives:
It is a method that appears to let the Cook County State's Attorney "try" a case before a judge is even involved, thereby leading to a supposedly higher conviction rate and greasing the skids for reelection chances. It also provides countless well paying patronage jobs for the connected bottom-of-the-barrel law school grads who can't find actual employment or don't want to spend years researching legal briefs.
It also leads to a dismal prosecution rate of felonies, everything being bargained down to misdemeanors or labeled "continuing investigation" while clearance rates hover around 25%.
Once again, Anita's minions cost people their lives:
- An alleged arsonist accused of setting a fire that killed his girlfriend and daughter on the West Side last week threatened almost exactly the same deed just three months ago.
Nathaniel Beller filled his bathtub with gasoline and threatened to torch his 4-year-old daughter Neriyah and 9-year-old son Naciere during a tense standoff with Cicero Police on Sept. 9, but neither police nor the Cook County State’s Attorney charged him.
Quickly freed after a psychiatric evaluation, the career criminal allegedly made good on his chilling threat at his mom’s house Saturday. Chicago Police say the mentally ill 29-year-old poured an accelerant on both children and their mother, Taniya Johnson, then started a fire that claimed the lives of Neriyah and Johnson as well as his own.
And the excuse given?
- Andy Conklin, a spokesman for the Cook County State’s Attorney office, confirmed that prosecutors declined to file felony charges, in part because Johnson refused to sign a criminal complaint. He declined further explanation of why Beller wasn’t charged.
Here's a funny little quirk of the law. If a police officer responding to a domestic situation sees cuts, bruising or obvious trauma on a victim, and the victim refuses to sign complaints against his/her abuser because they are afraid of further abuse, the officer is obligated under the law to sign complaints on behalf of the victim. Failure to do so subjects the officer to possible criminal and internal charges, termination and jail time.
But Anita's office can accept a victim's refusal to sign complaints to charge an asshole who has a 9-year-old standing in a tub filled with gasoline and the fallout is........what exactly? Oh yeah, a dead woman, a dead 4-year-old and a 9-year-old whose chances of survival are currently less than 50%.
But Anita's office can accept a victim's refusal to sign complaints to charge an asshole who has a 9-year-old standing in a tub filled with gasoline and the fallout is........what exactly? Oh yeah, a dead woman, a dead 4-year-old and a 9-year-old whose chances of survival are currently less than 50%.