Jussie Smollett has secured a major legal victory as the Illinois Supreme Court officially dismissed his conviction for lying about a staged hate crime. The ruling overturns both the Cook County decision and a subsequent appellate court judgment, bringing an end to the Empire actor’s highly publicized case.
In its decision, the court acknowledged the widespread controversy surrounding Smollett’s case but stressed the importance of honoring legal agreements. The ruling emphasized, “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 case has been sent back to the circuit court to finalize a dismissal.
Smollett was originally convicted in 2021 of disorderly conduct for faking a racist and homophobic attack in 2019 and lying to Chicago police. However, his legal team argued that the 2021 conviction violated his constitutional right against double jeopardy. In 2019, Smollett struck an agreement with Cook County prosecutors, which involved forfeiting a $10,000 bond and completing community service in exchange for having the charges dropped.
Despite the agreement, a special prosecutor was appointed in 2020 to revisit the case, leading to Smollett’s conviction. His lawyers contended that retrying him for the same allegations violated his fifth amendment rights and that the special prosecutor withheld key evidence from conversations with the Osundairo brothers, who alleged they were paid to stage the attack.
