Five ways the new State’s Attorney has righted the Cook County prosecutor’s office
Chicago exhaled a sigh of relief when the Associated Press declared on March 29, 2024, Eileen O’Neill Burke had prevailed in the Democratic primary for Cook County State’s Attorney. A city in need of a strong, pragmatic prosecutor, O’Neill Burke’s triumph in the primary race meant Chicago’s beleaguered citizens would finally receive long overdue relief from Kim Foxx’s two miserable terms.
Although her election in November 2024 was virtually assured after vanquishing her primary opponent, Clayton Harris, O’Neill Burke recognized she had a straightforward task prior to facing her GOP opponent in the general election. An office decimated at every level, O’Neill Burke performed a critical audit of the prosecution branch of the Cook County justice system and for seven months consumed herself in the exhausting and unpleasant work of rebuilding the office. Not an easy task by any means, with skill and determination, O’Neill Burke successfully persuaded several former Assistant State’s Attorneys who fled the office under Foxx to return.
After defeating Republican Bob Fioretti in the November general election, as O’Neill Burke prepared to assume office, she took the opportunity in her inaugural address to announce shifts to policy from her predecessor, and affirmed her intent to administering over a State’s Attorney’s office committed to meting out the kind of impartial, unqualified justice residents deserve from Cook County courtrooms.
Now is an appropriate time to take stock of O’Neill Burke’s performance, one year as State’s Attorney.
Retail theft
In one of her first major reversals to Kim Foxx’s eight-year festival of errors, O’Neill Burke announced her office would rollback her predecessor’s policy on retail theft. A woman open about decriminalizing theft, the message Foxx sent to shoplifters was they could steal with impunity. Under Foxx’s practice of non-prosecution, between December 2016-'24, retail theft surged and resulted in a devastating falloff of retailer profits and job loss. A pandemic-level rash of retail theft which led to stores curtailing hours and store closures, retail giant Walmart eventually waved a white flag to shoplifters and shuttered four Chicago stores.
In observance of established law, O’Neill Burke returned to the pre-Foxx threshold of felony prosecution for theft of a value of goods exceeding $300 or if the accused had a prior felony shoplifting conviction. The reversal had an immediate impact: After O’Neill Burke reapplied the law as written, retail theft dipped from a two-decade high in June 2024 by nearly 21 percent one year later. According to the Cook County Community Dashboard, in the four-year period between January 1, 2021 and December 1, 2024, the CCSAO disposed of 1,863 cases for retail theft. A yearly average of 465 cases, in contrast, in the one-year period since taking office, prosecutors under O’Neill Burke have disposed of 874 retail theft cases.
Pre-trial detainment
In another pivotal reversal to the Kim Foxx era, O’Neill Burke announced in December 2024 her office would adopt new policies seeking detention for accused criminals. Following the Pretrial Fairness Act (PFA) taking effect in September 2023, individuals charged with a crime were to be released be on their own recognizance — or under Electronic Monitoring (EM) supervision — except in instances in which the State files a motion with the court requesting detainment.
Prior to O’Neill Burke assuming office, it was explicitly implied office policy for the CCSAO to seek detention only in instances in which defendants were considered high-risk. This meant prosecutors under Foxx routinely declined to submit Detention Petitions. A staggering betrayal of law-abiding residents and one which is antithetical to the precepts of criminal law, Foxx’s refusal to submit petitions for detention led to over 400 individuals accused of serious violent crimes — often with a firearm — to return to the streets to commit further crimes.
Once in office, O’Neill Burke set new policy in which prosecutors were instructed to enter petitions for pre-trial detention for all Class X felonies such as murder, armed robbery, aggravated battery of a child, or aggravated vehicular hijacking. Offenses in which detainment was sought also included offenses committed with modified firearms, sex crimes, felonies committed on public transit, and domestic violence.
A gesture which marked the end to Kim Foxx’s cherished “catch and release,” O’Neill Burke empowering prosecutors to file petitions seeking detention reduced the frequency in which the accused dodged court appearances and prevented countless crimes from occurring by accused criminals who otherwise would have been released to the streets. Moreover, the end of “catch and release” reduced the probability for criminals on bail to harass and intimidate victims or witnesses to their crimes.
Working in tandem with Chicago Police
After eight years of Kim Foxx battling with Chicago Police, O’Neill Burke’s arrival as State’s Attorney meant Superintendent of Police Larry Snelling finally, and mercifully, had a prosecutor in office who shared his views on confronting gun offenders. Working in close consultation with Snelling, in January, O’Neill Burke unveiled a new pilot program to check gun violence and allow CPD to promptly resume their duties on the streets.
Under a new initiative — the “Felony Review Bypass” pilot — officers serving in Chicago Police Department’s 7th District were able to seek approval for some felony firearms charges with the District’s on-duty Watch Operations Lieutenant rather than a line Assistant State Attorney (ASAs) assigned to the SA’s Felony Review Unit (FRU). A program effectuated to reduce the length of time arresting officers spend awaiting approval by phone for the filing of felony gun charges — often requiring up to two hours — approval by the Watch Operations Lieutenant now allows arresting officers to process arrests swiftly and return to the streets to respond to emergency calls.
Predictably, critics of O’Neill Burke’s gun plan expressed concern the pilot removed a layer of accountability from police or hurled the reckless charge of racism. Despite the outlandish imputations, the program has been remarkably successful and over 95 percent of charges filed under Felony Review Bypass were eventually approved by the SA’s office. In November 2025, the program was expanded to cover Police Districts across the city.
Domestic violence
When whole categories of crime rose appreciably under Kim Foxx, it was not cofounding incidents of domestic violence climbed between 2016-2024. A crisis ignored by the startlingly incompetent Foxx, the scale of the problem was revealed by O’Neill Burke when she acknowledged in mid-June 29 women had been murdered at the hands of domestic abusers since the beginning of the year.
A situation so bleak, she described it as a “house on fire,” to address domestic abuse, O’Neill Burke restructured the CCSAO’s Special Victims Bureau (SVB), bolstering the bureau with additional prosecutors, investigators, and support staff, the thrust of which was to ensure a stronger, consistent, and more effective response to these crimes. Recognizing how domestic violence is a social, economic, and public health concern which impacts men, women and children, O’Neill Burke broadened the range of crimes over which the bureau managed, including sexual assaults and rapes, and crimes against children and other victims defined as defenseless due to specific characteristics.
O’Neill Burke reworking SVB to concentrate on domestic violence — a reaffirmation of the CCSAO’s commitment to seek justice for survivors of physical abuse — has paid dividends: As of June 2025, domestic violence incidents dropped 17 percent from a high of 22 to 24 per 100,000 residents in May 2024 to 20.3 per 100,000 one year later. Along with the new CCSAO policy which calls for pretrial detainment petitions in all felony domestic battery cases, the rearrangement of SVB has proven effective and has led to 81 percent of domestic offenders held in Cook County Jail.
Ending drive-thru exonerations
As the Chicago City Council seeks a solution to a yawning $1.15 billion deficit, the news the city would be adding to its budget woes by borrowing $283.3 million to meet verdicts and settlements in lawsuits filed against Chicago Police for alleged misconduct was most unwelcome. By far the worst, and most tangible legacy of Kim Foxx’s two terms, nearly $300 million is expected to be paid out to claimants for alleged “wrongful convictions” or “police misconduct” by the end of 2025.
Her mission issue, Foxx’s clinical obsession with freeing convicted criminals from behind bars eventually witnessed over 248 individuals released from imprisonment legally contest their criminal convictions through the CCASO’s Conviction Review Unit (CRU). Court proceedings which followed often saw exonerations and certificates of innocence granted. While a majority of those who were exonerated are coupled to a disgraced ex-Chicago Police Officer, dozens of individuals who were accused of monstrous crimes were released by leveraging the claim of “coerced confessions,” rather than exculpatory evidence demonstrating innocence.
Many of those freed from custody have filed multi-million-dollar lawsuits against Chicago.
While police misconduct exists, and there is a need for mechanisms to correct the abuses of police power, it is utterly implausible to presume many, if not all, the individuals who originally faced trial for appalling crimes, whose guilt was established by evidence, and who were convicted by a jury, were “wrongly convicted” in Cook County courtrooms.
In a dramatic departure from the Foxx era, O’Neill Burke has preserved CRU, but has not maintained the personnel levels from Foxx’s terms. Rather than continue with the sloppy, Foxx-esque sweeping exonerations, the sober O’Neill Burke has preferred to examine such claims of innocence on a case-by-case basis. By adopting a somber, conscientious, and above all objective, method to explore of claims of innocence, O’Neill Burke sent the signal exonerations and certificates of innocence would be issued only after compelling evidence of innocence emerges.
O’Neill Burke correctly diagnosed the problem with CCSAO and has applied the right prescriptions
While it is premature to raise a statue honoring O’Neill Burke for performing a miracle, Chicago’s new prosecutor does deserve a round of applause for her accomplishments.
Eileen O’Neill Burke entered office with a vision and a strategy to repair a Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office which for eight years had failed both victims of crime and law-abiding residents. A woman who recognized the role of State’s Attorney carries special responsibilities, O’Neill Burke has deployed effective management techniques and returned the application of the law as written as the cornerstone of her office’s method to contain violent crime.
A brutally simple but brilliant recipe to blunt crime, O'Neill Burke returning to basics of prosecuting crime has yielded substantial results: Police officers are on the streets to respond to residents, retail stores are experiencing fewer instances of theft, women suffering domestic violence have found shelter in the law, and violent criminals — particularly gun offenders —are being held in Cook County Jail. In one year under O'Neill Burke, crime in Chicago has dropped 22 percent.
O’Neill Burke’s effort at rebuilding a failing institution has not been limited to merely bringing crime under control. Inside the State’s Attorney’s office, O’Neill Burke’s leadership has lifted sagging morale among Assistant State’s Attorneys and all but ended the mass departure of talent which fled the office between 2017-2024. More broadly, O’Neill Burke’s policy reversals from the Foxx era have mobilized Chicago Police to restart apprehensions. According to CPD sources, arrests citywide are up 20 percent under O’Neill Burke’s leadership.
Chicago was at the end of its tether until Eileen O’Neill Burke stepped in. In year one, O’Neill Burke has established a stellar record. Since being sworn in, she has altered the fortunes of Chicago by throwing out Kim Foxx's progressive playbook and applying the law. By returning to the principles and traditions of criminal law, O’Neill Burke has changed the trajectory of the CCSAO, restored some civility to the streets, and regained the trust and confidence of Chicago’s residents.
Eileen O’Neill Burke has made a difference for Chicago, and for the better.
