Brendan F. Kelly

Brendan F. Kelly is the elected State's Attorney of St. Clair County, Illinois.

As the chief prosecutor in a large metropolitan county of Illinois that includes urban, suburban and rural areas including East Saint Louis, Kelly has aggressively taken on the challenges of violence, corruption, child protection and social justice. He has been mentioned as a rising political star among Downstate Illinois Democrats, while receiving bipartisan praise for his efforts at government reform and innovation.

Education and background

Kelly graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a B.A. in Government. Prior to college, Kelly interned in the office of House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt. While in college Kelly worked with a Canadian non-profit group aiding victims of child prostitution and interned at C-SPAN's Washington Journal. After graduating from Notre Dame, Kelly was commissioned in the United State's Navy. He also attended the Hebrew University of Jerusalem when he was stationed in the Middle East, and conducted research on Palestinian-Israeli joint police patrols in the West Bank. Kelly also served on the minehunter USS Heron as a surface warfare officer and logistics officer. While attending Saint Louis University School of Law, Kelly worked for former Illinois State Representative Wyvetter Younge of East Saint Louis. After graduating from law school Kelly became an Assistant State's Attorney prosecuting felony, juvenile, DUI and child support cases. In 2008, he became the youngest elected Clerk of the Circuit Court in Illinois, implementing multiple technological improvements to the office before being appointed the St. Clair County's top prosecutor, filling a vacancy created by the election of then State's Attorney Robert Haida to Circuit Judge. Kelly was elected to a full term in 2012.

Record of service

Fighting corruption

As State's Attorney, Kelly has aggressively pursued public corruption prosecuting bribery, official misconduct and fraud in over fifteen public corruption investigations in less than three years involving elected and other public officials. In May 2013, Kelly issued charges involving the abuse of federal "stimulus" funds in an alleged bribes-for-payments scheme. Kelly has also moved strongly against corruption in law enforcement in impoverished communities by prosecuting police misconduct, successfully lobbying for the creation of a state and local oversight board for police ethics and resources, and calling for greater manpower for the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Unit.

Violent crime

Immediately after taking office Kelly established the Violent Crime Unit under which the most heinous crimes are prosecuted by the same assistant state's attorney from the time of investigation through the trial stage—a process called "vertical prosecution." Felony prosecutions have doubled since that time, largely from an increase in violent crime prosecutions. Kelly particularly focused on domestic violence, establishing the Tracy Fogarty Center and increasing "victimless prosecution" by building cases against offenders based on evidence like video, independent witnesses, and 911 call recordings rather than relying on victims that are often reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement. The Violence Prevention Center of Southwestern Illinois noted a decrease in the number of second time domestic violence victims seeking assistance since these changes were implemented. Kelly also made prosecuting violent "cold cases" a priority by reopening and prosecuting murder cases that occurred from six to forty years ago. And despite the challenges of alleged corruption and witness intimidation, Kelly pushed forward with the ultimately successful prosecution of the murderer of the mayor of Washington Park, Illinois.

Social justice and East Saint Louis

The major focus of Kelly's efforts is fighting against the multigenerational cycle of violence, corruption and poverty in the greater East Saint Louis area: "You cannot have criminal justice without social justice and you cannot have social justice without criminal justice." East Saint Louis had a per capita homicide rate in 2011 four times that of Chicago and twenty times the national average, and has been ranked in numerous surveys as the most violent city in the United States. His main ally in this struggle is the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Steve Wigginton, who has made fighting violent crime in East Saint Louis his office's top priority. With the support of Wigginton and federal agencies, Kelly has worked with the Illinois State Police on Operation Last Call, Operation Lovejoy and Operation Wild West East to target dangerous criminals and hot spots linked with criminal activity including liquor stores, drug houses, public housing and night clubs in the East Saint Louis area. Kelly penned a letter with Illinois Senator Dick Durbin calling upon East Saint Louis government to limit liquor sale hours that were attracting criminal activity to East Saint Louis from Missouri. The efforts and partnership between Kelly's office and the US Attorney was praised by Attorney General Eric Holder who has since established a special working group within the Department of Justice focusing on violence in East Saint Louis. Kelly has also gone after slumlords and absentee property owners that allow derelict properties to become magnets for crime and environmental hazards that results in the exploitation of high poverty neighborhoods. However, Kelly's efforts have not focused solely on prosecution but have included partnerships with religious leaders, schools and social service providers in the area as well as holding several "clean slate" community courts which allow non-violent misdemeanor offenders to resolve outstanding court issues without incarceration or unpayable fines. The State's Attorney's new Offender Accountability Program has operated on the same principle for felony offenses, resulting in hundreds of young offenders being held accountable for violating the law without being branded a felon for the rest of their lives.

Children's justice

Recognizing the "felony factory" affecting many young people coming into the system at an early age, Kelly created the Children's Justice Division. This innovative reorganization within the State's Attorney's office unified prosecution of abuse and neglect, violent crimes against children, truancy, child support and juvenile delinquency into one prosecutorial unit. By tracking the overlap of kids that move through different parts of the justice system, the unit's mission is to protect children from the threats that can lead to a life of criminal activity, enhancing public safety in the short term and long term. Kelly also advocated for continued funding of pre-K education as a means of reducing crime and prosecuted parents for contributing to their child's truancy when parents disregarded or violated support services.

Suit against JP Morgan, Bank of America, HSBC

In 2012, Kelly filed a suit against several large banks and several local small banks involving an alleged "shadow" recording system in which banks avoided recording mortgages. In addition to skirting recording payments that all other individuals and small businesses pay, the suit also claims these banks have undermined transparency by making it impossible to determine who has an interest in mortgages, one of the pillars of the nation's financial system. The banks collectively moved to dismiss the suit, but the courts in June ruled the suit and discovery could move forward.

Drug Crime

Kelly has taken an active but nuanced approach to the prosecution of drug crime, aggressively prosecuting dealers of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and synthetic drugs while advocating for more treatment for addicts in the criminal justice system. Two years before the enactment of a state law, Kelly called for the banning of synthetic drugs such as "bath salts" or K2 being sold in retail establishments. Working with the sheriff's drug tactical unit, a dozen retailers were targeted resulting in voluntary removal of synthetic drugs as well as prosecution. Some of these synthetic drug prosecutions resulted in the largest fines paid in St. Clair County history and the first successful prosecution of synthetic drug crimes in Illinois under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Kelly also authorized the issuing of charges in drug cases based on reliable, police-conducted field tests rather than waiting for results from the state's back logged labs, allowing for quicker removal of drug dealers from the streets. In January, Kelly partnered with the Illinois State Crime Commission to fight the alarming rise in heroin overdoses in the Metro East by offering a $1000 reward for any tip leading to the conviction of persons providing heroin to kids. Shortly thereafter, Kelly issued charges against notorious heroin dealers Douglas Oliver and Debra Perkins who have since been charged federally.

Guns

Kelly supported the enactment of a concealed carry law in Illinois, but unlike a handful of other downstate prosecutors, refrained from making any unilateral public declarations regarding concealed gun cases before the actual passage of the new law. Working with a group of law students from Saint Louis University, Kelly's office reviewed thousands of criminal cases to identify dozens of individuals with mental health issues and filed court orders in these cases with Illinois State Police to prevent these individuals from being able to legally own guns. Kelly also teamed up with local police departments for gun possession compliance checks on convicts banned from owning guns.

Other issues

Kelly was against elimination of the death penalty in Illinois citing the need for such a penalty for the most heinous cases, but has since acknowledged that Illinois' history of death row exonerations has destroyed the public's faith in the just application of that penalty making its resurrection unlikely and unnecessary. During the 2012 general election campaign, a Democratic Party worker called upon Kelly, a Democrat, to investigate the residency status of the ultimately losing Republican candidate for Congress in the 12th district, Jason Plummer. Kelly declined saying that the criminal justice system should not be used for political purposes. In 2011, the Westboro Baptist Church, famous for hate-filled speech, planned to stage a protest at the funeral procession of a deceased soldier in St. Clair County and understandably the Illinois State Police asked Kelly to consider issuing charges against them. Kelly advised against it believing charges would only give the hate group the desired publicity that would come with a potentially protracted trial. On the day of the procession no arrests were necessary, the Westboro Baptist church demonstrators were minimal and there was virtually no media coverage of their "protest."

Awards and Honors

Kelly was named Prosecutor of the Year by the Southern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission in 2012. Kelly received an Illinois Mothers Against Drunk Driving Hero's Award in 2011 and has received several awards from the NAACP. In 2010, the conservative weekly legal bulletin the Madison Record named Kelly, a Democrat, it's Person of the Year. This year Kelly was appointed to the board of the National District Attorney's Association as well the Illinois State's Attorney's Association.

Personal

Kelly is married and has two children. Kelly's wife, Joanne Kelly, is an oncology nurse and bone marrow transplant coordinator at Saint Louis University Hospital. Joanne is an outspoken advocate for FORCE (Facing Our Risk for Cancer Empowered) a non-profit support group for women who have tested positive for the BRCA breast and ovarian cancer gene. Joanne became an advocate after she herself tested positive for the gene and underwent preventive mastectomy and hysterectomy to reduce the hereditary risk for cancer that affected so many other women in her family.

References

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