(LifeSiteNews) – The Illinois Supreme Court has thrown out the 2021 conviction of left-wing actor Jussie Smollett for faking a right-wing hate crime against himself on the grounds that the prosecution should not have gone forward after a non-prosecution agreement with the Cook County state’s attorney had been reached.
In January 2019, the gay actor best known for his work on the drama Empire claimed he had been assaulted in Chicago by two masked men allegedly shouting racial and “homophobic” epithets, who allegedly beat him to the point of fracturing a rib, put a rope around his neck, and poured bleach on him. “This is MAGA country,” they supposedly yelled, a reference to once-and-future President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Numerous left-wing figures, including future President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, aggressively pushed the narrative that the incident was part of a wave of Trump-inspired hate and violence. But critics immediately questioned the likelihood of violent Trump supporters roaming around the streets of strongly Democratic Chicago, suspicions that intensified after police failed to find video of the attack among hundreds of hours of footage from cameras near where the actor said it happened, and Smollett only gave police “limited and redacted” phone records.
Two potential “attackers” were soon identified, but rather than pro-Trump whites they were two Nigerian brothers with ties to Empire. It was then reported that police suspected Smollett of paying them to stage the attack, and Smollett was officially charged in February 2019 with filing a false police report and indicted on 16 counts of disorderly conduct stemming from the offense, though left-wing Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dropped the charges in March of that year.
Special Prosecutor Dan Webb revived six of the counts a year later, however, and Smollett was convicted on five of them in December 2021, including of falsely telling multiple police he was a hate crime victim and battery victim. In March 2022, he was sentenced to 150 days in prison, 30 months’ probation, and a $25,000 fine, as well as ordered to pay $120,106 restitution to the City of Chicago. He was released from jail just five days after sentencing, however, on the grounds that “Smollett has never been convicted of a violent offense and would have completed his sentence of incarceration well before his appeal is decided,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
On Thursday, the state’s highest court concurred with Smollett’s appeal that Cook’s agreement to drop the charges should have tied Webb’s hands, Just the News reported.
“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,” Webb responded. “We respectfully disagree with the Court’s factual and legal reasoning which upends long-standing Illinois precedent. Indeed, the Special Prosecutor’s brief to the Illinois Supreme Court was replete with Illinois case law that would not preclude a second, new prosecution following a dismissal without prejudice via nolle prosequi. Even the Illinois Supreme Court agreed in its opinion that its holding today was not explicit in earlier Illinois decisions.”
Analyzing the story, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey argued the reversal was legally correct, despite his feelings about Smollett himself: “As much as Smollett deserved to get convicted in court, the principles of double jeopardy and honest dealing by states in legal affairs are more important. Smollett never should have gotten that deal in the first place, but that’s an issue for voters to take up with the DA equivalent in Chicago. It shouldn’t give leave for a second prosecution, however justified, once a defendant meets the terms of an agreement signed by prosecutors.”
Regardless, Morrissey also noted that Smollett’s own legal team stopped short of arguing that he was innocent on the merits.
Smollett is perhaps the most famous offender of this nature, but far from the only one. There is a long line of “hate crimes” purportedly committed against political liberals or sexual, racial, or religious minorities that the mainstream media seized upon but were later revealed to have been fabricated by the “victims” themselves.
Earlier this year, Taral Patel, a former Biden administration official who was the Democrat candidate for Fort Bend Precinct 3 Commissioner in Texas, was arrested and charged with online impersonation for writing racist Facebook comments against himself and attributing them to his Republican opponent, incumbent Commissioner Andy Meyers.