Jussie Smollett's conviction overturned in alleged hate crime hoax

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the actor should not have been prosecuted again for the 2019 incident after previously making a deal with the government.

The years-long saga of Jussie Smollett's fake hate crime appears to finally be over. On Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned his 2021 conviction for disorderly conduct and declared that the actor will not have to report back to prison after all.

"Today we resolve a question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants," the court wrote in its decision. "Specifically, we address whether a dismissal of a case by nolle prosequi allows the State to bring a second prosecution when the dismissal was entered as part of an agreement with the defendant and the defendant has performed his part of the bargain. We hold that a second prosecution under these circumstances is a due process violation, and we therefore reverse defendant’s conviction."

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Back in 2019, Smollett was best known for his role as Jamal Lyon on the TV series Empire. But he made headlines for a different reason on Jan. 29 of that year, when he was allegedly attacked by two unknown assailants on his way to Fox's Chicago studio. The men allegedly used racist and homophobic slurs and threw a rope around his neck and shouted "MAGA" (for Make America Great Again, the well-known political slogan of then-President Donald Trump). Smollett spent a brief time in the hospital, and the situation was initially investigated as a hate crime by the Chicago Police Department, until investigators found evidence that Smollett had actually cooperated with his "attackers" to stage the incident. A grand jury subsequently indicted him on 16 felony charges for falsifying police reports and lying to investigators.

But Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx recused herself from the investigation, and the assistant state's attorney named to oversee the case in her absence struck a deal with Smollett's defense team. All of those charges were dropped in exchange for Smollett performing community services and paying a $10,000 bond to the city of Chicago. He was also written off of Empire by creator Lee Daniels and did not take part in the show's final season.

Related: Empire creator Lee Daniels says he'd work with Jussie Smollett again after hoax: 'He was a son to me'

This decision was not particularly popular. Both Trump and Rahm Emanuel, then the mayor of Chicago, publicly disagreed with the dropping of charges against Smollett. Foxx in particular was heavily criticized for her recusal and her office's deal, which was used against her by political opponents when she ran for re-election in 2020 (though she was ultimately successful in that race).

In 2020, a special prosecutor was appointed to redo the case. It went to a jury trial that time, and Smollett was convicted of disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to 30 months of felony probation, with the first 150 days to be served in county jail. But Smollett never served that sentence. He appealed the conviction, and though the Illinois Appellate Court upheld the initial ruling, he appealed it again, and now the Illinois Supreme Court has reversed the decision, saying that since the government had made a deal with Smollett and he had fulfilled his end of the bargain, there was no legal basis for trying him again.

"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," the Illinois Supreme Court wrote in their ruling this week. "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."

Related: Jussie Smollett's sister Jurnee breaks silence on his alleged attack: 'It's been f---ing painful'

The court's logic is very similar to that used by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court when they overturned Bill Cosby's sexual assault conviction and released him from prison in 2021, saying that the conviction was based on depositions Cosby had given in a civil case only after being guaranteed he would not face criminal prosecution (which meant he could not invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination). Indeed, the Illinois court cites the Pennsylvania court's ruling in the final pages of its verdict.

You can read the Illinois Supreme Court's full ruling here.