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 the Associated Press. Smollett was accused of staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself and lying to the police about in 2019. Smollett has always maintained his innocence in the matter, but was found guilty on five counts of felony disorderly conduct in 2021.

Thursday’s decision had nothing to do with Smollett’s guilt or innocence in the actual attack. 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 conducting community service,” as per the AP. 

“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 Rochford wrote the decision. “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.”

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

“We are disappointed in the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision today to overturn Jussie Smollett’s convictions and sentence, including the award of over $120,000 in restitution to the City of Chicago for its overtime expenses in investigating Mr. Smollett’s fake hate crime. We respectfully disagree with the Court’s factual and legal reasoning which upends long-standing Illinois precedent,” Webb said in a statement. “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 was originally sentenced to 150 days in jail, 30 months of probation, and ordered to pay a fine of around $130,000. He only spent about one week in prison before being released pending appeal.