The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned Jussie Smollett’s conviction of charges that he perpetrated a hate-crime hoax against himself. The actor was convicted in December 2021 on five felony counts of disorderly conduct for the hoax, which occurred in 2019.
Smollett had been sentenced to 150 days in a county jail and 30 months of probation, and was required to pay $130,000 as restitution. He appealed the case.

In the surprise ruling, the Court decided that Smollett should not have been charged because he had entered a nonprosecution agreement with the state’s attorney’s office in Cook County.

The opinion read in part: “We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust, Nevertheless, 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.”

Smollett had originally complained that he’d been attacked by two men outside his residence in Chicago. He told police that the two men had hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him while placing a noose around his neck. The police investigated the incident and alleged that Smollett had staged the incident by paying two people to stage the whole thing, purportedly to obtain a pay raise for his role in Empire.

All charges were dropped against the actor in 2019 thanks to a deal with the Cook County Attorney’s Office in which he paid a $10,000 fine and did community service. However, Smollett was indicted again in 2020 after an investigation by a special prosecutor. Those were the charges that were overturned today by the Illinois Supreme Court,

As precedent, the Court cited the overturning of Bill Cosby’s sexual-assault conviction by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in which Cosby had made a plea deal with prosecutors.

Nenya Uche, who served as Smollett’s lawyer, hailed the Illinois ruling for “restoring order to Illinois’ criminal law jurisprudence. “This was not a prosecution based on facts,” Ucha delared, “rather it was a vindictive persecution, and such a proceeding has no place in our criminal justice system. Ultimately, we are pleased that the rule of law was the big winner today.”

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