It was a decision that Jussie Smollett’s lead attorney said was no surprise, but it still took nearly six years to arrive at Thursday's conclusion.
The Illinois Supreme court ruled Thursday that the case against the “Empire” actor never should have been brought in the first place, with the main argument centering around Smollett striking a deal with the Cook County State's Attorney’s Office to drop charges in 2019.
“This was a vindictive persecution,” said Nenye Uche, Smollett’s lead attorney. “This was not a prosecution."
Smollett’s attorneys had argued that a deal existed between their client and Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx’s office when initial charges were dropped in the case in March 2019, three weeks after the actor had officially been charged and accused with staging a racist, homophobic attack in Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood earlier that winter.
According to defense attorneys, the agreement held that there would be no prosecution if Smollett did community service and paid a $10,000 fine. However, they said the deal was upended by public reaction to the plea bargain, which Foxx said is common in misdemeanor cases like Smollett’s.
“You almost never see these cases end up in a courtroom,” she said.
A special prosecutor was later hired in the case and ultimately brought new charges against Smollett, which resulted in a conviction and a prison sentence of 150 days.
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Smollett’s attorneys said everyone from the office of the Special Prosecutor on down should have known better than to pursue the new charges, arguing that a contract existed by way of that plea agreement, and that trying the case exposed their client to double jeopardy.
“None of us wants that to happen to us, to have a deal and they take that agreement back,” said attorney Shay Allen.
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In their 32-page ruling, the Illinois high court agreed with that assessment. In the 5-0 majority opinion penned by Justice Elizabeth Rochford, the justices acknowledged that many in the public thought the initial deal clearing Smollett was unjust.
“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,” she said.
But while appointed special prosecutor Dan Webb said he disagreed with the Supreme Court’s finding, faulting its factual and legal reasoning, Uche called the ruling a victory, especially in the age of social media.
“The big challenge is holding the line for the rule of law,” Uche said. “That’s exactly what the court did today.”
