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Jussie Smollett’s conviction for lying to the police about a hate crime he was accused of staging against himself was overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court.
The ruling was made on procedural grounds, going back to a decision by the Cook County State Attorney’s Office to drop the case against Smollett a few weeks after his original indictment, with the actor agreeing, in turn, to forfeit his $10,000 bail to the city. That decision, however, caused an uproar amongst city officials, which ultimately led to the appointment of a special prosecutor and the revival of the case. Smollett was eventually convicted on five charges of lying to the police in Dec. 2021 and sentenced to 150 days in prison the following March.
But the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the special prosecutor’s case against Smollett shouldn’t have gone forward because of that original no-prosecution agreement.
The judges described their ruling as one based around a “question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants” — specifically if the State should be allowed to “bring a second prosecution when the dismissal was entered as part of an agreement with the defendant and the defendant has performed his part of the bargain.”
They ultimately ruled: “We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation, and we therefore reverse defendant’s conviction.”
Smollett’s lawyer, Nene E. Euche, told Rolling Stone, “This was not a prosecution based on facts, rather it was a vindictive persecution and such a proceeding has no place in our criminal justice system. Ultimately, we are pleased that the rule of law was the big winner today. We are thankful to the Illinois Supreme Court for restoring order to Illinois’ criminal law jurisprudence.”
Dan K. Webb, the special prosecutor who helmed the case against Smollett, said he was “disappointed” with the ruling, and argued there was plenty of Illinois case law “that would not preclude a second, new prosecution following a dismissal without prejudice.” His statement also noted the evidence he and his team uncovered “of substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures” by the Cook County State Attorney’s Office during the initial phase of Smollett’s case, which led to his appointment as special prosecutor in the first place.
Webb further stressed: “Make no mistake—today’s ruling has nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence. The Illinois Supreme Court did not find any error with the overwhelming evidence presented at trial that Mr. Smollett orchestrated a fake hate crime and reported it to the Chicago Police Department as a real hate crime, or the jury’s unanimous verdict that Mr. Smollett was guilty of five counts of felony disorderly conduct. In fact, Mr. Smollett did not even challenge the sufficiency of the evidence against him in his appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.”
Smollett ended up serving less than a week of his five-month sentence, with an appeals court agreeing that he should be released on bond pending the outcome of his appeal. The formerEmpireactor’s first appeal, however,did not go his way, with two of three Appeals Court judges ruling to uphold the conviction last December. (That decision prompted Smollett and his legal team to appeal again to the state Supreme Court.)
Smollett’s case dates back to 2019 when he went to police in Chicago claiming that two men assaulted him outside his apartment, put a noose around his neck, and called him racial slurs. The initial incident garnered a slew of media attention, as did the revelations over the next few weeks as Smollett’s story crumbled. Authorities eventually accused him of staging the attack with the help of brothers Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo, who later testified that Smollett paid them to attack him as a publicity stunt. (Smollett, for his part, has long maintained his innocence.)
At the end of its ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court notably cited the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s controversial decision to throw out Bill Cobsy’s sexual assault conviction, also because of a previous agreement with prosecutors.
“[W]hat would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied,” the Illinois Court wrote.
This story was updated with a statement from special prosecutor Dan K. Webb.
