Illinois Supreme Court overturns Jussie Smollett’s conviction

After five years, could the Jussie Smollett case finally be over? The actor’s conviction was overturned in the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday, according to Associated Press. Smollett was accused of staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself and lying to police about it in 2019. Smollett has always maintained his innocence in the case, but was found guilty of five counts of aggravated disorderly conduct in 2021.

Thursday’s decision had nothing to do with Smollett’s guilt or innocence in the attack itself. Instead, the conviction was overturned because the Illinois Supreme Court ruled 5-0 “that a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene after the Cook County state’s attorney initially dropped charges against Smollett in exchange for forfeiting his $10,000 bond and executing community service,” according to AP.

“We are aware that this case has generated considerable public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unfair,” Judge Elizabeth Rochford wrote in the ruling. “Yet what would be more unjust than the resolution of a single criminal case would be a finding by this court that the state was not obligated to honor agreements upon which people have injuriously relied.”

Certain parties criticized the state attorney’s initial agreement to drop Smollett’s charges; then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel called it a “whitewashing of justice” and suggested that Smollett was given special treatment as a celebrity (sore NBC News). On Thursday, Dan K. Webb, the special prosecutor who took the case after it was dropped by the state attorney general, noted that there was no precedent that said he could not pursue “a second, new prosecution after a dismissal without prejudice .”

“We are disappointed by the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn Jussie Smollett’s convictions and sentence, including the award of over $120,000 in damages to the City of Chicago for its overtime expenses related to the investigation of Mr. Smollett’s fake hate crime. We are respectfully disagree with the Court’s factual and legal reasoning, which overturns longstanding Illinois precedent,” Webb said in a statement. “Make no mistake – today’s verdict has nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence. The Illinois Supreme Court found no error in the overwhelming evidence presented at trial that Mr. Smollett orchestrated a fake hate crime and reported it to the Chicago Police Department as a true hate crime, or the jury’s unanimous verdict that Mr. Smollett was guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct, Mr. Smollett did not even challenge the sufficiency of the evidence against him in his appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.”

Smollett was initially sentenced to 150 days in jail, 30 months of probation and ordered to pay a fine of about $130,000. He spent only about a week in jail before being released pending appeal.