Daniel Kirk characterizes his relationship with Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez quite simply: "From the moment I wake up in the morning and open my eyes, she's generally the first person I talk to, other than my partner, and when I go to sleep at night, she's the last person I talk to."
He has been chief of staff in Alvarez's office since 2008, when she was sworn in, and is her primary adviser in all matters. "My job is as varied as the state's attorney's job," he said. "Any subject she has to address, I'm going to have to address as well. That can range from charging decisions on a criminal case to dealing with the media to dealing with other units of government."
The Cook County state's attorney's office is the second-largest prosecutor's office in the United States, after Los Angeles. It prosecutes all crime violating state statutes that takes place in Cook County—about 34,000 felonies and 190,000 misdemeanors each year. The office also has a civil division that represents the county in lawsuits.
"If we were a law firm, we would be the largest law firm in the state of Illinois and one of the largest in the United States," Kirk said.
While attending Chicago-Kent College of Law, Kirk decided he wanted to be a prosecutor. He applied with the state's attorney's office after graduation and was hired as an assistant state's attorney in 1997, working his way from unit to unit. Alvarez was his boss when he was in the narcotics bureau.
He left the office in 2002. "I went to a firm downtown, Querrey & Harrow, and got hired as an associate," said Kirk. "I really learned a whole other area of the law I wasn't familiar with—quite frankly, I never thought I would leave."
But in 2008, State's Attorney Richard A. "Dick" Devine left office, and Alvarez contemplated running. Kirk, who'd remained in touch with her, encouraged Alvarez to run. She agreed to do so if he ran the campaign. After her election, she asked him to be her chief of staff.
"Five years later, here we are," he said. "It's very broad-ranging. I have a calendar that sets out what I'll do every day, but by the end of the day, that doesn't reflect what I actually did. There are a lot of emergent issues you can't anticipate. That's just the nature of our job."
Kirk has been out as gay professionally since the early 2000s. "The world had changed—I saw no reason to make any effort to conceal it," he said, adding that being open about being gay has probably made him a better lawyer. "I think that when you come to terms with who you are, it creates empathy for all sorts of people whom you may not have taken a moment to understand before."
Having some measure of control over how the state's attorney's office operates, Kirk said he has worked diligently to make sure that LGBT employees are comfortable working there. "It should be somewhere where everyone feels they have a place if they have a passion for public service and what it means to be a prosecutor," he added.
The state's attorney's office makes a number of outreach efforts to the LGBT community each year, both by participating in the National LGBT Bar Association's annual Lavender Law conference and by giving out the Pride Award selected by its LGBT Advisory Council.
According to Kirk, the agency takes its responsibilities to LGBT Cook County residents seriously as well. "LGBT citizens should know that they are going to be treated fairly by this office if they are a victim of a crime. Or, if they are a witness to a crime, they shouldn't feel any reticence about coming forward. We're going to take their case seriously and treat them with dignity and respect."
Prosecuting hate crimes is "obviously something near and dear," he said.
In 2011, Kirk pursued charges against three Evanston men who were accused of beating a man on the El because of his sexual orientation. The men were acquitted, however, after the judge questioned the reliability of the victim's testimony.
"When that [crime report] was brought to my attention, I personally took the case as the lead prosecutor at 26th and California," Kirk said. "Hate crimes need to be called out as such when they occur."
He also said he was not convinced that hate-crime legislation might have long-term negative effects by keeping perpetrators in prison longer.
"Sometimes the hate crime is not the highest crime the person is being charged with," Kirk said. "But a hate crime victimizes both the individual and the community. If you're a victim of a crime because of your perceived sexual orientation, not only have you been victimized, but your entire community is going to become aware of what happened to you, and that entire community will be caused to feel fear."
"I don't know of anyone spending a significant amount of additional time in prison because of that, but if they are, they earned it themselves," Kirk added.
In 2012, Alvarez's office decided that it would not fight a lawsuit filed against Cook County Clerk David Orr on behalf of a group of gay Illinoisans seeking the right to marry. The lawsuit presented a quandary since Orr and the state's attorney's office, which was tasked with defending him, both were in favor of allowing the residents to marry.
"We had to devise a legal strategy," Kirk said. "I remember it was on my mind all weekend. I was walking my dogs, and I thought to myself, 'When someone files a complaint, the defendant has to file an answer, admitting or denying the articulated allegation, so why don't we just admit everything the plaintiffs allege in the complaint?'"
Alvarez and Kirk consulted with Orr, who agreed to simply admit that the charges in the complaint were true.
"Which then caused this panic among the anti—marriage-equality entities," Kirk said. "They feared that if we're going to just [lie] down on this thing, that creates marriage equality—but the catch is that it would create marriage equality only for Cook County. Ultimately, other parties intervened, and they're sort of carrying the torch for the other point of view."
Reflecting back on his work, Kirk said that working with people needing help was what drew him to being a prosecutor and remains the most satisfying component of his job.
"Of all the people in the criminal-justice system, the person who I think is the most sympathetic character is the victim," said Kirk. "As a prosecutor, you feel a deep sense of pride advocating for that character. The main focus is that you do something for someone who needs a legal voice and a skilled mind to get something for them that's intangible, and that's justice."
Series to date in full layout form here: www.windycitymediagroup.com/pdf/LGBTCriminalSystem.pdf .
