Nearly six years after the actor was accused of staging a hate-crime hoax in downtown Chicago and lying to police, the Illinois Supreme Court have overturned his conviction over prosecutorial issues…
In 2022, actor Jussie Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail after being convicted of staging a hate crime against himself, but his conviction has now been overturned in a shocking ruling. Nearly six years after the former Empire star was accused of staging a hate-crime hoax in downtown Chicago and lying to police, the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday, November 21, 2024 overturned his conviction over prosecutorial issues.
The court ruled that after Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dropped charges against Smollett, a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene.
“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” Justice Elizabeth M. Rochford wrote in the court’s 5-0 decision, with two justices abstaining.
“Because the initial charges were dismissed as part of an agreement with defendant and defendant performed his part of the agreement, the second prosecution was barred,” said Rochford.
This week’s ruling did not address Smollett’s claims of innocence, which he has maintained since 2019, according to his legal team.
How we got to this week’s ruling
Back in 2019 Smollett said that he was the victim of a hate crime, claiming that two men shouted homophobic, racist slurs, beat him and looped a makeshift noose around his neck. His accusations made headlines around the globe, but the case soon saw a shift from widespread sympathy to skepticism – and his character being written off of Fox’s high profile television show Empire – as emerging details led to questions regarding the actor’s claims about what exactly unfolded during the alleged attack. In February 2019 he was arrested and formally charged with federal disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report, his alleged motive was gaining sympathy to further his career.
In December 2021, a jury found Smollett guilty of five charges of disorderly conduct for organizing the attack himself. Authorities initially believed the actor and investigated his claims, but evidence surfaced suggesting that Smollett had paid two brothers who had worked with him on Empire as extras, Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, to carry out a hoax attack.
Prior to his December 2011 conviction, the Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx initially dropped his 16 charges in April 2019. Foxx, who removed herself from the case, welcomed an independent investigation into how she and her office approached the case. In August 2019, Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb as special prosecutor. Webb headed up the prosecution in the second attempt when Smollett was found guilty of five out of six disorderly conduct charges in December 2021. Smollett was then sentenced to 150 days in jail, 30 months of probation, and was ordered to pay over $130,000 in restitution. He served just six days of the sentence when the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the ruling.
This past September, the actor took his case to the Illinois Supreme Court to have his conviction overturned. The court cited Smollett’s second prosecution after his charges were first dropped as the main factor for overturning the conviction.
Back to this week’s ruling
Nenye Uche, Smollett’s lead attorney, said the original case should never have gone to trial, and that it would not have done so if his client was just a “regular Joe down the street.”
“This was a vindictive persecution. This was no prosecution,” Uche said.
“I’m sure Jussie would want an apology, but he’s a realistic man, right? He knows he’s not going to get it,” he added.
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