Overcoming Obstacles:
Insight from Black Women Prosecutors
Wednesday, February 21, 2024 • 1:00pm EST
In celebration of Black History Month, the IIP held a virtual panel highlighting the leadership of Black women prosecutors in the criminal justice reform movement. Joining our discussion were:
Cook County, IL State’s Attorney Kim Foxx;
Douglas County, GA District Attorney Dalia Racine;
Executive Director of Equal Justice USA Jamila Hodge; and
Moderator Angela J. Davis, Distinguished Professor of Law, American University.
Black women are significantly underrepresented in the field of prosecution, making up roughly 1% of prosecutors nationwide. Nonetheless, they have played a unique and crucial role as leaders of the prosecution reform movement, both as line attorneys and as elected leaders. All the while, Black women prosecutors have faced personal attacks rooted in racism and sexism as they continue to pursue justice for their communities.
Professor Angela J. Davis moderated a conversation between our esteemed panelists on defining moments of their journeys to reform the criminal justice system, how they’ve navigated challenges around racism and sexism as prosecutors, and how to build more inclusive cultures within prosecutors’ offices and throughout the legal profession.
Kim Foxx
Cook County, IL State’s Attorney
Kimberly M. Foxx is the first Black woman to lead the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office – the second-largest prosecutor’s office in the country. Kim took office on December 1, 2016, with a vision for transforming the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office into a fairer, more forward-thinking agency focused on rebuilding public trust, promoting transparency, and being proactive in making all communities safe. She was elected to a second term in 2020.
As Cook County State’s Attorney, Kim has undertaken substantial criminal justice reforms focused on public safety and equity. She has revamped the office’s Conviction Integrity Unit, resulting in overturned convictions in nearly 250 cases, including the first-ever mass exoneration in Cook County for 15 men whose convictions stemmed from misconduct by a Chicago Police Officer.
Kim played a pivotal role in the crafting of the 2020 Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act to ensure that this historic legislation provides the most extensive, equitable form of conviction relief possible and requires the expungement of low-level cannabis offenses. Under her leadership, the office has expunged over 15,000 cannabis convictions. Providing this relief was not only a critical part of righting the wrongs of the failed war on drugs that disproportionately harmed communities of color; it is also a statement of her values and commitment to justice for all.
Understanding that cash bail can devastate those with limited financial resources, Kim has been a leader in bond reform, instructing prosecutors to agree to recognizance bonds where appropriate and reviewing bond decisions in cases where people are detained because they cannot afford bonds of $1,000 or less. Recognizing the need for the office to focus the office’s resources on rising violent crime, she raised the threshold on felony retail theft to $1,000 in alignment with other major jurisdictions in the country, and the office no longer prosecutes misdemeanor traffic offenses for failure to pay tickets and fines.
With the goal of making Cook County the most transparent prosecutor’s office in the country, in 2018, Kim became the first and only prosecutor in the country to make felony case-level data available to the public. The open data portal provides unprecedented access and transparency into the work of a prosecutor’s office, work that is grounded in data and evidence.
A noted and national speaker on social justice issues, Kim has served on various panels, including the Illinois Judicial Council, Cook County’s COVID Reopening Task Force, and banning together with other elected prosecutors to stand against the criminalization of abortions following the overturned Roe v. Wade.
Considered a national leader in criminal justice reforms, Kim has been published in two anthologies, Progressive Prosecution: Race and Reform in Criminal Justice, Change from Within; Reimagining the 21st Century Prosecutor, where she discusses the inequities in the criminal justice system and the role that prosecutors’ offices can affect change and outcomes for offenders. Kim is also a sought-after keynote, speaker and lecturer, participating in panels across the country including, serving as the keynote for the University of San Francisco- USF Law Review Symposium on Race, Justice, and the Role of the Prosecutor in a Post George Floyd Era, January 2023; panelist for the DAs on the Frontier of Change: In Conversation with Melina Abdullah, May 2022; and as a panelist for the Google Zeitgeist Conference and as a guest speaker for the Makers Women’s Conference in 2018.
Kim served as an Assistant State’s Attorney for 12 years and was also a guardian ad litem, where she worked as an attorney advocating for children navigating the child welfare system. Prior to being elected State’s Attorney, Kim served as Chief of Staff for the Cook County Board President, where she was the lead architect of the county’s criminal justice reform agenda to address racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice systems.
Born and raised in Cabrini Green on Chicago’s Near North Side, Kim is a graduate of Southern Illinois University, where she earned a B.A. in Political Science and a J.D. from the SIU School of Law.
Dalia Racine
Douglas County, GA District Attorney
Dalia Racine is the Douglas County District Attorney. Dalia was elected in 2020 and she is the first woman and first person of color to serve in this role in her community. She has lived in Douglas County for over 16 years with her husband, a Douglas County educator, and their 3 children. Dalia brings almost 20 years of prosecutorial experience to serve our community. She has specialized in homicides, crimes against women and children, and human trafficking. Dalia also served as an Attorney Advisor with AEquitas, where she provided training and technical assistance around gender-based violence investigations and prosecutions to prosecutors, law enforcement, and allied professionals across the country and internationally.
Dalia has championed the responsibility of elected prosecutors to keep their communities safe by implementing innovative practices and policies that reduce the number of repeat offenders who cause harm and diverting them out of the criminal justice system by connecting to resources that bring individual and community healing. Dalia has integrated Smart Justice while holding dangerous offenders accountable in our prison system. Additionally, Dalia has made it a priority for the District Attorney's office to be an integral part of our community and to keep servant leadership at the forefront of everything we do.
Dalia and her team created several programs to serve the community since taking office, including:
Project Pivot, which diverts young adult offenders out of the criminal justice system and connects them with job training, financial literacy classes, mental health services, and job placement opportunities.
Rising Change Juvenile Mentorship Program, which connects community mentors with kids in our juvenile court system to provide encouragement and support to find positive change.
Goodwill Guardians, which is a collaboration with the Douglas County Chamber of Commerce and gives the local business community the opportunity to stand in the gap for crime victims by providing financial support or services to help repair harms from their victimization.
Annual Trek or Treat 5K, which raised over $6,000 in donations to local non-profit organizations providing services to domestic violence survivors.
Justice Integrity Unit, which provides review of claims of innocence and sentence review to ensure that the past conduct of the District Attorney’s Office is reviewed with today’s scrutiny of justice.
In addition, Dalia believes that she and her team are obligated to serve our community inside and outside of the courthouse. In 2023, the Douglas County District Attorney’s office provided over 1,500 hours of community service to Douglas County and the surrounding Metro Atlanta area.
No matter if it involves serving her community, raising her children, or tolerating her rowdy Great Dane, Dalia tries to live by the quote from Winston Churchill and states, "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." The adventure is in the journey.
Dalia is proud of the work that her team strives to do to bring systemic change and ensure that we have a criminal justice system that is firm but fair to all.
Jamila Hodge
Executive Director of Equal Justice USA
Jamila became Equal Justice USA’s second executive director in 2021, bringing more than 15 years of criminal justice experience as a prosecutor, policy advisor, and technical assistance provider. Her goal is to establish EJUSA as a leader in building solutions to violence outside of the criminal legal system by demonstrating the impact of EJUSA’s work and expanding its reach throughout the country. She comes to EJUSA after launching the Reshaping Prosecution Program at the Vera Institute of Justice, where she and her team worked with progressive prosecutors, community-based organizations, and people impacted by the system to develop policy and practice reforms to end mass incarceration and reduce racial disparities within the system. One of the signature initiatives she launched was Motion for Justice, which centers racial equity in transforming the role of the prosecutor and aims to implement concrete racial equity strategies in partnership with community-based organizations.
Before Vera, Jami logged many achievements across a 12-year career in the U.S. Department of Justice as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. She spent four of those years as a community prosecutor focused on intervention and prevention of harm. She also served in the Office of Legal Policy, where she helped shape policies for people returning from incarceration and those seeking access to counsel in criminal proceedings. Later, she worked in the office of then-Vice President Joe Biden as an advisor on criminal justice and drug policies. Jami has demonstrated her expertise on CBS, MSNBC, ABC Nightline, and many other media outlets. She earned her law degree from Duke University School of Law and her bachelor of arts in psychology and sociology at the University of Michigan.
Angela J. Davis
Distinguished Professor of Law, American University
Angela J. Davis is a Distinguished Professor of Law at American University Washington College of Law where she teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Criminal Defense: Theory and Practice, and Criminal Justice Ethics. Professor Davis has been a Visiting Professor at George Washington University Law School and Georgetown University Law Center. She has served on the adjunct faculty at George Washington, Georgetown, and Harvard Law Schools. Professor Davis is the author of Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor (Oxford University Press, 2007), the editor of Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution and Imprisonment (Pantheon, 2017),the co-editor of Trial Stories (with Professor Michael E. Tigar) (Foundation Press, 2007), and the co-author of Criminal Law (with Professor Katheryn Russell-Brown) (Sage Publications, 2015) and the 8th edition of Basic Criminal Procedure (with Professors Stephen Saltzburg and Daniel Capra) (Thomson West, 2021). Professor Davis’ other publications include articles and book chapters on prosecutorial discretion and racism in the criminal justice system. She received the Washington College of Law’s Pauline Ruyle Moore award for scholarly contribution in the area of public law in 2000 and 2009, the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment in 2002, the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 2009, and the American University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award in 2015. Professor Davis’ book Arbitrary Justice won the Association of American Publishers 2007 Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division Award for Excellence in the Law and Legal Studies Division. She was awarded a Soros Senior Justice Fellowship in 2004. Professor Davis served as the Executive Director of the National Rainbow Coalition from 1994 - 1995. From 1991 - 1994, she was the Director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (“PDS”). She also served as the Deputy Director from 1988 – 1991 and as a staff attorney at PDS from 1982 – 1988. Professor Davis is a former law clerk of the Honorable Theodore R. Newman of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. She is a graduate of Howard University and Harvard Law School.