SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The Illinois Supreme Court has reversed the conviction of actor Jussie Smollett.
The former “Empire” actor took his case to the Illinois Supreme Court in September in a last-ditch effort to have his 2021 conviction overturned.
“Today we resolve a question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants. 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 Illinois Supreme Court wrote in its ruling.
Smollett was convicted of falsely reporting a 2019 hate crime against him in 2021. Smollett, who is Black and gay, alleged his attackers shouted racist and homophobic slurs at him before putting a noose around his neck on a Chicago street.
He was found guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct for setting up the attack. Testimony at his trial indicated he paid two brothers, whom he knew from the set of the TV show, $3,500 to carry out the “attack.”
But prior to his conviction, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx initially dropped his 16 charges in Apr. 2019 — which is the basis of Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling.
Foxx, who recused herself from the case after she communicated with a Smollett relative during the probe, reiterated that she welcomed of an independent investigation into the way she and her office handled the case.
That came in Aug. of 2019, when Cook County Judge Michael Toomin’s appointed former U.S. attorney Dan Webb as special prosecutor.
Webb led the prosecution efforts the second time around and Smollett was found guilty of five of six disorderly conduct charges on Dec. 9, 2021.
Smollett was sentenced to 150 days in jail, 30 months of probation, and ordered to pay more than $130,000 in restitution. So far, he has served six days of that sentence.
According to the ruling’s conclusion, the Illinois Supreme Court cited Bill Cosby’s case as one that also generated “significant public interest.”
The court went on to allude to Smollett’s original charges being dropped and said while “many people” were dissatisfied with that — it “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 detrimentally relied.”
In addition to the aforementioned public interest, Cosby’s case was cited from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania regarding enforcing a prosecutorial promise not to prosecute.
“It cannot be gainsaid that society holds a strong interest in the prosecution of crimes. It is also true that no such interest, however important, ever can eclipse society’s interest in ensuring that the constitutional rights of the people are vindicated. Society’s interest in prosecution does not displace the remedy due to constitutionally aggrieved persons,” the court wrote regarding Cosby.
The Appellate Court of Illinois denied Smollett’s request to toss his conviction in December of last year.
The Illinois Supreme Court noted that Chief Justice Theis and Justice Cunningham did not take part in the consideration or decision of Smollett’s case.