The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned Jussie Smollett’s conviction for falsely reporting a hate crime to Chicago police in 2019, citing prosecutorial missteps.
In a decision announced Thursday, the state’s highest court concluded that the actor should not have faced charges after entering a nonprosecution agreement with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
The court acknowledged the widespread public scrutiny surrounding the case, with many considering the initial outcome to be inequitable.
“Nevertheless, what 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 justices wrote in their decision.
Special prosecutor Dan Webb, who pursued the second round of charges against Smollett, expressed disagreement with the court’s reasoning. “Make no mistake—today’s ruling has nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence,” Webb emphasized, pointing out that his team spent two years preparing the case. He argued that Illinois legal precedents did not explicitly prevent re-prosecution after a dismissal without prejudice.
Smollett’s legal troubles culminated in 2022 when he was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months of probation after being convicted on five counts of felony disorderly conduct.
In January 2019, Smollett claimed he was the victim of a hate crime, alleging he was assaulted in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood because of his race. However, subsequent investigations led police to arrest two brothers, Ola and Abimbola Osundairo, who implicated Smollett in orchestrating the attack.
Smollett was initially arrested in February 2019 and charged the following month with 16 felony counts for allegedly filing a false police report. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office later dropped the charges after Smollett agreed to forfeit his bond and perform community service. At the time, the prosecutor’s office called this resolution “a just disposition and appropriate resolution to this case.”
The decision to drop the charges drew sharp criticism from Chicago Police and then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel denounced it as a “whitewash of justice” and an instance of preferential treatment due to Smollett’s celebrity status.
Despite the agreement, a special prosecutor reopened the case and brought fresh charges against Smollett, leading to a contentious trial over the objections of Smollett’s defense team.
Throughout the proceedings, Smollett consistently denied staging the attack. Taking the stand in his own defense, he testified that the attack was genuine and that he had no role in fabricating the incident.
The Osundairo brothers, however, told a different story. They testified that Smollett hired them to stage the attack as part of a scheme to garner public sympathy and paid them $3,500, which they claimed was compensation for their role in the hoax.
Smollett’s attorneys argued that the brothers exploited him for financial gain and asserted that the $3,500 payment was for personal training services, not for staging an assault.
{Matzav.com}