The Illinois Supreme Court has just announced a ruling that is not sitting well with a lot of people.
The court has overturned the conviction for the hate crime hoax of actor Jussie Smollett.
The conviction was overturned because prosecutor Kim Foxx has made a previous deal with Smollett before the Special Prosecutor brought new charges against him.
Off on a Technicality
To be clear, the dismissal of the case had nothing do with Smollett being innocent and everything to do with a cushy deal that Kim Foxx wanted to give Smollett, likely because of his fame.
To that point, his attorneys argued that charges would never have been brought against Smollett if he were a “regular” person, but that is complete nonsense.
At the time Smollett pulled off this hoax, fake hate crimes were running rampant, and in just about every case I had read at the time, charges were filed.
Attorney Nenye Uche stated, “This was a vindictive persecution, not a prosecution.
“The Supreme Court made it clear: prosecutions must be based on facts, not public opinion.
“If this had been a regular citizen, this case would never have gone to trial.”
The court leaned into that deal with Foxx, citing that it was “fundamentally unfair to allow the prosecution to renege on a deal with a defendant when the defendant has relied on the agreement to his detriment.
“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.”
Even though the verdict was overturned, prosecutors stated that the Chicago Police Department would be still seeking to recover the more than $100,000 that was spent in overtime conducting the investigation into the fake hate crime.
