Actor Jussie Smollett’s conviction on charges he staged a hate crime against himself in Chicago in 2019 and then lied to police about it has been overturned by the Illinois State Supreme Court.
“Today we resolve a question about the state’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants,” the court wrote in its ruling. “Specifically, we address whether a dismissal of a case by nolle prosequi allows the state 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.
“We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation, and we therefore reverse defendant’s conviction,” the court declared.
In January 2019, Smollett – then starring in the television series Empire – told Chicago police he had been attacked by two men wearing ski masks who used racial and anti-LGBTQ epithets in the attack. Police later charged that Smollett had set up the attack himself, staging it in an effort to raise his public profile.
Original charges against Smollett were dropped, but then a new special prosecutor took over the case and reinstated the charges. Smollet was eventually convicted on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct and was sentenced to 150 days in county jail.
Smollett, who has all along maintained his innocence, appealed to the state supreme court on Feb. 5 after a state appellate court upheld his conviction in December last year.
Smollett’s attorney Mark Geragos told Fox News that the supreme court’s ruling “resolve[s] a question about the state’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants. We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation.”
— Tammye Nash