00:00In a major legal twist, the Illinois Supreme Court has overturned actor, singer, and songwriter
00:05Jussie Smollett's conviction for lying about a 2019 hate crime. On Thursday, the court ruled
00:11that the Illinois Supreme Court addressed the state's responsibility to honor agreements made
00:15with defendants stating, it is fundamentally unfair to allow prosecution to renege on a deal
00:20with a defendant when the defendant has relied on the agreement to its detriment. Special
00:24Prosecutor Dan K. Webb also released a statement after the Illinois Supreme Court overturned Jussie
00:29Smollett's conviction and sentence. He pointed to a non-prosecution agreement the Cook County
00:34State's Attorney's Office made with Smollett five months before Webb was appointed. We are
00:38disappointed in the Illinois Supreme Court's decision today to overturn Jussie Smollett's
00:42conviction and sentence, including the award of over $120,000 in restitution to the City of
00:48Chicago for its overtime expenses in investigating Mr. Smollett's fake hate crime. We respectfully
00:54disagree with the court's factual and legal reasoning, which upends long-standing Illinois'
00:59precedent. As many recall, the former Empire actor was found guilty in 2021 for faking a racist and
01:05homophobic attack. At that time, Smollett alleged that two men attacked him, hurling racial and
01:09homophobic slurs and placing a noose around his neck. This led to an extensive search for suspects
01:14by Chicago police detectives and sparked an international uproar. In December of 2021,
01:20a jury found Smollett guilty on five out of six felony counts of disorderly conduct for filing a
01:25false release report and lying to police, who spent over $130,000 investigating his claims.
01:31He was sentenced to 150 days in county jail, ordered to pay $120,000 in restitution to the
01:36City of Chicago, fined $25,000 and given 30 months of felony probation. The case was reopened in June
01:432019 when a Cook County judge appointed a special prosecutor to review the decision to demiss all
01:49charges against Smollett. As a result, the actor was indicted again in February 2020 on six felony
01:55counts of disorderly conduct for making false reports to the police. Smollett's lawyer argued
02:01this violated his Fifth Amendment rights, as Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx had initially
02:06agreed to drop the charges if Smollett paid $10,000 and did community service. Smollett's
02:11attorney Mark Garagos also released a statement after the court's decision saying,
02:16Today we resolve a question about the state's responsibility to honor the agreements it makes
02:21with defendants. We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process
02:26violation and we therefore reverse the defendant's conviction. In its ruling, the Illinois Supreme
02:32Court referenced the Bill Cosby case in Pennsylvania highlighting that while society has a
02:36strong interest in prosecuting crimes, this interest cannot override the constitutional rights of
02:40individuals and the remedy for constitutional violation must take precedence over the pursuit
02:46of prosecution.
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