(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Her primary opponent calls it bad judgement, but a candidate for Cook County States Attorney is defending the way she handled a past case that sent an innocent child to prison for murder, while making her case to replace Kim Foxx.
Three decades ago, long before she became an appellate court judge, Democrat Eileen O'Neill Burke prosecuted a case that saw an 11-year-old boy convicted of a woman's murder. The boy's confession was coerced, and the case was later overturned.
Rival candidate Clayton Harris III said Burke showed poor judgement. Burke said Harris is showing he doesn't know the facts of the case.
Burke said the juvenile, his mother, nor the attorney defending him ever claimed that that statement was coerced.
The case was appealed. The appellate court affirmed and the Supreme Court denied review. Eight years later, the case went to federal court and the federal court found that the boy's "attorney was wrong in not challenging that confession- that his attorney was ineffective," according to Burke.
"Neither that court or any other court has ever questioned my conduct in that case or any other case," she added.
Burke has been a judge since 2008 and has differences with Kim Foxx. She said she would roll back Foxx's thousand-dollar threshold for the prosecution of felony retail theft. She thinks there should be prosecutions for thefts of $300 dollars or more as permitted under state law.
However, the longtime judge applauds the part of the SAFE-T Act that abolished cash bail in Illinois.
"What the SAFE-T Act does is it says that we are no longer going to look at money," she explained.
"We are going to base the criteria now on 'are you a danger to the public or are you not' and I think we can all agree that's what the criterion should be. We are the first state in the nation to try to do this and somebody who is not a danger to the public does not need to be incarcerated prior to them being found guilty."
She acknowledges prosecutors are responsible for proving suspects are a danger in detention hearings now, and she said her office would do that aggressively if she's elected.
Burke and Harris will face each other in the March 19 Democratic Primary.
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