Jussie Smollett conviction overturned by Illinois Supreme Court

The Illinois Supreme Court overturned Jussie Smollett's hate crime hoax conviction Thursday.

"Today we resolve a question about the State’s responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants," the court wrote in documents obtained by Fox News Digital. "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."

Smollett, who is Black and gay, reported to Chicago police that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack by two men wearing ski masks in January 2019.

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Charges against Smollett were originally dropped. After special prosecutor Kim Foxx requested a new inquiry, the "Empire" star was convicted on five felony counts and later sentenced to 150 days in county jail. The Illinois Supreme Court decided Thursday that the special prosecutor's decision to retry Smollett on charges violated his rights.

"Today we resolve a question about the State's responsibility to honor the agreements it makes with defendants," Mark Geragos, Smollett's lawyer, told Fox News Digital. "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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Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani explained the Illinois Supreme Court's decision to overturn Smollett's conviction.

"Jussie Smollett is Bill Cosby 2.0.  Not because of what he did, but because of what the prosecutor did," he told Fox News Digital. "Kim Foxx shockingly agreed to drop the charges against Smollett for staging a hate crime, lying about it, and costing Chicago PD countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"By the time a new special prosecutor took over, it was too late because Smollett had already forfeited his bail and performed community service," Rahmani added. "The Illinois Supreme Court held there was an agreement and Smollett lived up to his end."

"This is similar to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling a previous district attorney agreed not to prosecute Cosby. It’s a shame because Smollett has never accepted responsibility for the hoax, and now he will never face real justice. And it’s an example of another soft on crime prosecutor in our nation’s biggest cities."

Smollett filed a petition on Feb. 5, requesting the Illinois high court intervene in his ongoing legal drama. The actor's conviction for a staged hate crime was upheld in December.

"What should have been a straightforward case has been complicated by the intersection of politics and public outrage," Smollett’s attorneys wrote in the February petition.

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They repeated an argument from previous appeals saying his 2021 trial violated his Fifth Amendment protections against double jeopardy, or being punished twice for the same crime. They said he had already performed community service and forfeited a $10,000 bond as part of a 2019 deal with the Cook County state’s attorney’s office to drop the initial 16 counts of disorderly conduct.

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Smollett's legal team argued that the state breached a "nolle prose agreement," or non-prosecution agreement, by indicting him again in the hate crime hoax. In the agreement, Smollett had been told he could perform community service, forfeit his bond, and the case would be dismissed – similar to a deferred prosecution. Instead, a grand jury restored the charges in 2020, and he was later convicted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.