Illinois Supreme Court agrees to hear appeal from former 'Empire' actor Jussie Smollett

The Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from actor Jussie Smollett after an appellate court upheld his conviction for lying to police about being the victim of a hate crime in a staged attack.

The high court announced Wednesday it would hear Smollett’s case, but a date for arguments has not been set.

In December, a state appeals court upheld the actor’s conviction and sentence in a split decision.

Justices David Navarro and Mary Ellen Coghlan affirmed the conviction and said they did not find his sentence unreasonable. But Justice Freddrenna Lyle dissented, saying she would have overturned the conviction.

The charges stemmed from Smollett’s claim that he was attacked by two men who made remarks indicating they were supporters of President Donald Trump while beating him, dousing him with a bleach-like substance and hanging a thin rope noose around his neck as he walked to his Streeterville apartment in January 2019.

At the time, Smollett was a rising star on the cast of the hit television show “Empire” and was attempting to launch a music career.

Word of the attack spread quickly, but his story quickly fell apart as police investigated, and he was charged with lying.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx later said she was recusing herself from the case after it was revealed she had helped facilitate conversations between Smollett’s family and the Chicago Police Department.

Months later, her office decided to drop the charges, saying it reached an agreement with the actor to forfeit his bond and perform community service.

However, he was indicted on new charges after a judge appointed special prosecutor Dan Webb to review the decision. Webb’s report stated the state’s attorney office had committed “substantial abuses of discretion and operational failures.”

A Cook County jury found Smollett guilty of five counts of disorderly conduct in 2021, and he was sentenced to 30 months of probation, with the first 150 days to be served at Cook County Jail.

Smollett appealed the conviction and was released after spending six days of the sentence behind bars.

Smollett’s attorneys argued that the second round of charges against the actor violated an agreement reached with Cook County prosecutors to drop the case if he performed community service and forfeited his bond.

Writing for the majority, Justice Navarro stated that “The record does not establish that Smollett entered into a nonprosecution agreement ... in exchange for his performance of community service and the forfeiture of his bond.”

Lyle disagreed, saying that although Smollett had not entered into a plea agreement, “a bilateral agreement took place, which bound the state, nonetheless.

“The majority contends that there is no evidence in the state’s agreement that the parties intended for the agreement to be tantamount to a dismissal with prejudice,” Lyle said. “I disagree.”

Richard Kling, a professor at Chicago–Kent College of Law, told the Sun-Times after the ruling that he believed the high court would pick up the case. He pointed to the overturning of actor Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction by Pennsylvania’s highest court on similar arguments.

“I think that’s [Smollett’s] strongest argument and best chance,” Kling said.