Jussie Smollett’s conviction for allegedly staging a racist and homophobic attack on himself was overturned Thursday.
The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the Empire actor’s 2021 conviction on five counts of disorderly conduct related to the strange incident in Chicago two years earlier.
Smollett had argued that a special prosecutor should not have been allowed to intervene after the Cook County state’s attorney initially dismissed the case, and the state’s highest court concurred.
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The ruling did not, however, address Smollett’s longstanding claim of innocence in faking the attack.
In 2019, Smollett stoked public outcry when he said that two men assaulted him in Chicago, hurling homophobic and racist slurs and tying a noose around his neck.
He reported the incident to police, and two men, brothers Olabingo and Abimbola Osundairo, were arrested in the course of the investigation.
But the men, who worked as extras on Empire, said that Smollett had staged the attack and paid them to carry it out.
Smollett was arrested in February 2019 and soon indicted on 16 felony counts of filing a false police report. But prosecutors dropped the charges after the actor relinquished his $10,000 bond to the city and agreed to perform community service.
The move shocked the public and sparked criticism.
Then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called it “a whitewash of justice.”
After further investigation by a special prosecutor, Smollett was indicted in 2020 on six count of disorderly conduct related to the false police report. He was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 150 days in the county jail.
He appealed the decision, but in 2023 a state court rejected his argument. Now, though, the state’s supreme court has overruled that decision and vacated Smollett’s conviction.
It determined that Smollett’s conviction was unfair given a prior agreement with prosecutors stemming from his first criminal case.
“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 ruling read. “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.”
