The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned Jussie Smollett’s 2022 conviction on charges of falsely reporting a hate crime to the police. The court found that Smollett should not have been prosecuted for a second time after the charges were initially dropped in 2019.
In 2019, Smollett reported to police that two men had attacked him in Chicago. He claimed that they yelled racist and homophobic slurs and told him, “This is MAGA country.” While many were quick to come to Smollett’s defense (including then-Senator Kamala Harris), the Chicago Police Department soon claimed that Smollett had orchestrated the attack himself. He was arrested and charged with filing a false police report.
Shortly after a grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 counts of disorderly conduct, the prosecution dropped all charges against the actor. A few months later, former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb was appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate why the charges were dropped. Webb decided to “further prosecute” Smollett, leading to a widely publicized trial that found Smollett guilty of falsely reporting a hate crime.
Now, the Illinois Supreme Court has decided that the second prosecution violated Smollett’s rights. “We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation, and we therefore reverse defendant’s conviction,” Justice Elizabeth M. Rochford wrote, per the New York Times.
“Make no mistake — today’s ruling has nothing to do with Mr. Smollett’s innocence,” Webb said in a statement, noting that he and his team “respectfully disagree with the Court’s factual and legal reasoning.”
Speaking to TMZ, Smollett’s lawyer Nenye Uche said that he and his client were “ecstatic” and “happy” with the decision.
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