Agreed. Many remedies are best served extra-judicially.
Someone should hand Trump a line to propose "The Jussie Smollett Hate Hoax Reparations Act." And that's it. That's all he'd have to do. Then the Left tears itself to pieces chasing yet another of Trump's rabbits, drawing critical attention to the very thing the Left wanted glossed over.
Here's a good example: "They're eating pets!" And the Left goes CRAZY proving it was only a couple of guinea pigs, maybe a cat, a goose or two. And no more than TWO apartment complexes taken over by Venezuelan gangs in Denver. So there, bigots!
After a week the whole country learns that literal, laugh-out-loud stereotypical sweatshop owners and slumlords straight from an old Katzenjammer Kids' comic are grifting off immigrants and the taxpayers.
You really can't make this stuff up. Trump is an evil genius.
The Federal statute of limitations for most crimes is five years, so the Trump DOJ will have to get hold of a time machine if they want to press charges for the original hoax, which occurred in January of 2019. If the state of New York can allow repeated law suits against Trump for slander by the journalist who has claimed to be raped by several men, maybe the Feds can charge Jussi for any repeated statements made within the five year window. This might even allow for multiple charges for multiple hoax statements, but they probably need to be made to government officials.
He's probably broke and certainly a laughingstock, so resurrecting his acting career seems unlikely. I could almost feel sorry for him, if he'd made it a fake gay bashing instead of racial and political. Was it ever determined if either of the Nigerian Bros was more than a rent-a-thug to him?
Jussie Smollett, Alec Baldwin --- its nice to be a pampered performing pet of the powers that be.
Baldwin literally murdered a girl on camera in front of witnesses, got away with it, and was back on SNL this week attacking the Trump administration (this time in a bad impression of RFK, rather than his old bad Trump impression, natch).
One thing about our Deep State: they enjoy openly mocking us and displaying their power, including the enforcement of double standards.
Only double? How about triple, quadruple and quintuple standards? Like that great Groucho Marx line says, "These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."
Sounds like a crock to me. Double jeopardy is about retrying someone for a crime they've already been found innocent of, not reopening a prosecution. The former is of course all too common in politicized cases, and the only good argument for doing it here is that turnabout is salutary.
Anyway, Sailer doesn't link to the ruling (which I haven't red) but, from the CBS article he does link to, here it is, in case anyone wants to check to see if it has any merit:
Either Foxx was smart or Smollett was lucky (or he had a lawyer smarter than both of them) because Smollett forfeited his bond and performed a few hours of community service in the deal. That made the deal a quid pro quo rather than just a prosecutor deciding not to pursue charges. Since Smollett fulfilled his end of the deal the State of Illinois was bound by any reasonable view of contract law to keep theirs.
This might be a case of be careful what you wish for. Enabling the state to randomly violate plea deals with a quid pro quo because a new prosecutor says somebody got too good a deal could wind up hurting many more people than it helps.
(Sailer:)"Public outrage led to... Jussie being convicted ... But after 6 days, he was let out and pursued his appeal that he was the victim of DOUBLE JEOPARDY."
Another more sophisticated hoax and Pam Bondi the new Trump proposal for AG.
"If you followed the story around the Trayvon Martin shooting and the subsequent arrest, jail and trial of George Zimmerman, you probably know the majority of what Florida AG Pam Bondi did. However, it was almost 12-years-ago now. So, for those who don’t remember here’s the story."
The person I associated with the attempt to frame Zimmerman was Angela Corey, but the money quote from your article is "..., Florida AG Bondi replaced the Sanford officials with State investigators working for a new “special prosecutor” Angela Corey, out of Jacksonville. /
District Attorney Angela Corey... was Pam Bondi’s campaign manager."
Wikipedia: "On August 30, 2016, Corey lost her re-election primary to Republican challenger and former Nassau County prosecutor Melissa Nelson[4] by nearly 50,000 votes, a margin of 38 percentage points.[5]" To be fair, the Zimmerman trial wasn't the only reason for her unpopularity.
IANAL but all he did was waste police time. This happens all the time without publicity, and probably to a greater degree. People attempting revenge on ex-spouses, business partner, etc, by making false accusations of criminality.
Smollett wanted a small dose of public sympathy, he got a large dose of public outrage.
Sorry no. If racism is the worst sin in our society today, then manufacturing it where it doesn’t exist—crying wolf, if you like—is the second-worst crime. Live by your own rules.
Probably lucky to have had this much push-back. A more cravenly cucked place like Minneapolis would have had a perfunctory investigation before offering Jussie an apology; cash settlement; five statues; and renamed a couple schools after him.
Anybody else remember that Trump's initial reaction was to run interference for Smollett? While it was obvious from the start that this was a hoax, Trump's first statement was about how awful the alleged incident was, giving momentum to the hoaxers.
If anybody can find his initial statement I'd appreciate a link. The internet isn't what it used to be.
The members of the Illinois Supreme Court who overturned Jussie Smollett's conviction:
- three Blacks;
- one White male Republican;
- three White-female Democrats.
If all 3 Blacks voted to symbolically vindicate the half-Black/half-Jewish, anti-White hate-hoaxer Jussie Smollett, it'd take only 1 of the 4 Whites to get it through.
(The final decision is reported as 5 votes to overturn, 0 votes against, 2 abstaining. The justice who authored the opinion was White-female Elizabeth Rochford.)
I ask: Why is the Illinois Supreme Court 3/7ths Black and only 1/7th White-Republican in a state that voted "only" 55-44 D in 2024? The number of Black justices, if randomly selected from a pool of people selected for merit, should be usually 0/7ths Black, and maybe one-tenth of the time it should be 1/7th Black (on randomized merit). A "3/7ths Black" share It doesn't make sense, except (obviously) because of political "rigging" of the system is in place, and the one-party-state-like machine that runs the show wants to reward Blacks.
----
Here are the seven Illinois Supreme Court justices:
-
(1.) Chief Justice, MARY JANE THEIS: White-female, b.1949, lifelong Democratic Party member. Her father (1910-1982) was, also a Chicago judge and lifelong Democratic member, of German-Catholic ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was born about 1881 in Germany and arrived in the USA in 1884. Her mother's side present in the USA at least several generations more, surnames including Rosier, Hays, and McCoid.
-
(2.) P. SCOTT NEVILLE, JR.: Black male, born in Chicago about 1949. (The 1950 Census found the city of Chicago to be 14% Black ["Negro"]; the state of Illinois, 7.4%.) The city continued to attract Blacks and would sit as high as 35-40% Black for decades (by late 1960s? to 2000s).
-
(3.) DAVID K. OVERSTREET: White male, born 1966, Mt. Vernon, Jefferson County, southern Illinois. His hometown region is a typical White-Midwest area politically: a former D-R swing area tipping in 2016-2024 to 75-25 Trump-voting (e.g., gave a 1300-vote margin to Bill Clinton in 1996 but an 8000-vote margins to Trump in 2020 and 2024. And that on the same total-county population (no net population growth). Judge Overstreet is a Republican. He is the only of that fine old species known as the White Heterosexual Middle-America Male on the Illinois Supreme Court in 2024. In most of Illinois history, all seven would have fit the description. The state of Illinois even today remains 58% White and probably easily 80%+ of the qualified pool is White (citizens, age 50+, with local roots, academically qualified or qualifiable for high-level legal work), but White males hold only 1 of 7 seats in this body.
-
(4.) LISA HOLDER WHITE: born 1968, Decatur, Illinois. This mid-Illinois town tipped into having a large Black population somewhere back there, a similar process ongoing at the same time as the bigger one in Chicago. University of Illinois, JD, 1993.
-
(5.) JOY V. CUNNINGHAM: Black female, born in New York, early 1950s. No apparent ties to Chicago before the early 1980s; earned a JD at John Marshall Law School, University of Chicago, 1982.
-
(6.) ELIZABETH M. ROCHFORD: White female, born 1960?, apparently a Catholic. Democrat. She authored the decision overturning Smollett's conviction, which four other justices joined (two abstaining).
-
(7.) MARY K. O'BRIEN: White female. born 1965 in Kankakee County, Illinois. (The county had a steady population, gave a 2000-vote margin to Obama-2008 but an 8000-vote margin to Trump-2020 and a 10,000-vote margin to Trump-2024. Mary K. O'Brien was/is a swing-district Democrat who can attract White Middle-America swing-voters. The first line in her Illinois Supreme Court bio stresses that she "was raised on her family's farm." JD, University of Illinois Champagne, 1994. She served in the Illinois state legislature, 1997-2003, as a Democrat.
-
As already mentioned, this list of seven -- three Blacks, three White-female Democrats, and one White-male Republican -- is not representative of the state. Illinois "only" went 55-44 Kamala-Trump in 2024. But this 55%-element, its elite and agenda-setters, do indeed run the system and set the agenda; on this state supreme court they have a 6/7ths [86%] supermajority.
Similar states in the vicinity which don't have an albatross like "big-Blue" Chicago, are all winnable for Republican immigration-restrictionists and those who rightfully resent a system that could produce such a Supreme Court. This was demonstrated in the 2016-2024 presidential elections; and Illinois (due to Chicago) is a warning-bell in a similar way that California is.
"I ask: Why is the Illinois Supreme Court 3/7ths Black and only 1/7th White-Republican in a state that voted "only" 55-44 D in 2024?"
Obviously because the non-(D) fraction doesn't count if the politician nominating the IL Justices is a (D). And the (D)'s are all into performative pro-black racism.
But in this case the opinion seems to be right. Giving him the deal he was given may have reflected corruption, but he was given the deal by someone legally competent to give it to him and a new prosecutor can't just void a deal already accepted and acted upon.
By happenstance I was just looking at an article about someone just executed by nitrogen inhalation. He had murdered someone at the age of 19. He was 50 when he was executed. In comparison this was done at warp speed.
The Trump administration will hopefully be frying bigger fish come January. I’m a lot more outraged that I’m taxed, however minimally, to support NPR than I am by this clown. He’s a laughingstock, let that be his cross to bear.
The Court found that both Smollett and the prosecutors intended their agreement to be the final resolution of the case. He complied with the agreement, to his detriment. The state can't then decide to ignore its side of the agreement and prosecute him anyway. This is a slightly fuzzy area but it's not an unreasonable conclusion. From my reading, if prosecutors had withdrawn the deal before Smollett did anything in reliance on it, that would probably have been OK.
Basically the state screwed up by (1) offering him the deal in the first place and (2) going back on it when it became a PR headache. One can think both that Smollett's a dirtbag AND that the state screwed up the case against him.
The big problem is that the Chicago world of Richard J. Daley is long gone. The city of Chicago is run by a circus of idiots. Most of the proud, hard-working ethnic groups of Chicago have decamped to the suburbs. The whites of modern Chicago are all woke, happy to obey a dysfunctional city government as some sort of penance. Jussie Smollett is what Chicago deserves.
I realize logic is in short supply these days, but there’s one nagging issue I just can’t shake about hate hoaxes. Modern discourse suggests racism is the most heinous, evil sin one can commit. Racism makes you Literally Hitler. If that is true, if that is the principle upon which we build a society, then falsely accusing another of a racist act should be the second-worst crime, because it undermines trust at every level.
And yet, crickets. The world in which we live in is increasingly Kafkaesque in its arbitrary contradictions. The double binds that progressives impose are a good way to drive someone insane if they look too closely. I don’t know how Steve keeps his good humor.
The analogy that comes to mind for me is Alex in "Clockwork Orange" (after he is "rehabilitated"):
White liberals (who rule the MSM and most of our culture) cannot physically or emotionally bring themselves to criticize a black person who can still plausibly play the Victim card. They can't bring themselves to skewer Jussie or the preposterous plagiarizer Claudine Gay or even clowns like Al Sharpton, Fani Willis, Lori Lightfoot or even women-beaters like Chris Brown, Mike Tyson or Dr Dre. It just feels too painful and uncomfortable to them, so they change the subject.
The only time a white liberal can criticize a black person is when they're conservative. Blasphemy and heresy are the only hanging offenses, everything else is based on Victim status.
Agreed. Many remedies are best served extra-judicially.
Someone should hand Trump a line to propose "The Jussie Smollett Hate Hoax Reparations Act." And that's it. That's all he'd have to do. Then the Left tears itself to pieces chasing yet another of Trump's rabbits, drawing critical attention to the very thing the Left wanted glossed over.
Here's a good example: "They're eating pets!" And the Left goes CRAZY proving it was only a couple of guinea pigs, maybe a cat, a goose or two. And no more than TWO apartment complexes taken over by Venezuelan gangs in Denver. So there, bigots!
After a week the whole country learns that literal, laugh-out-loud stereotypical sweatshop owners and slumlords straight from an old Katzenjammer Kids' comic are grifting off immigrants and the taxpayers.
You really can't make this stuff up. Trump is an evil genius.
What you describe isn't evil.
I know I'm being hyperbolic
The Federal statute of limitations for most crimes is five years, so the Trump DOJ will have to get hold of a time machine if they want to press charges for the original hoax, which occurred in January of 2019. If the state of New York can allow repeated law suits against Trump for slander by the journalist who has claimed to be raped by several men, maybe the Feds can charge Jussi for any repeated statements made within the five year window. This might even allow for multiple charges for multiple hoax statements, but they probably need to be made to government officials.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-650-length-limitations-period
The next Trump Administration has 9 days until the 5 year statute of limitations runs out.
January 29, 2020 - 1 year since hoax
January 29, 2021 - 2 years
January 29, 2022 - 3 years
January 29. 2023 - 4 years
January 29, 2024 - 5 years since hoax, window closed for indicting
For federal civil rights laws, the SoL is usually 7 years
He's probably broke and certainly a laughingstock, so resurrecting his acting career seems unlikely. I could almost feel sorry for him, if he'd made it a fake gay bashing instead of racial and political. Was it ever determined if either of the Nigerian Bros was more than a rent-a-thug to him?
Why would you almost feel sorry? Is a gay bash hoax nicer than a political race bash hoax?
Either one is despicable.
Hollywood will make a point of reviving whatever career he has. I never heard of him before this and I was quite happy that way.
I think Hollywood will sweep Smollett under the largest rug they can find.
Hollywood wishes he had not been caught and do not want us reminded that race crimes against blacks are mostly faked. He will not be heard from again.
Jussie Smollett, Alec Baldwin --- its nice to be a pampered performing pet of the powers that be.
Baldwin literally murdered a girl on camera in front of witnesses, got away with it, and was back on SNL this week attacking the Trump administration (this time in a bad impression of RFK, rather than his old bad Trump impression, natch).
One thing about our Deep State: they enjoy openly mocking us and displaying their power, including the enforcement of double standards.
Only double? How about triple, quadruple and quintuple standards? Like that great Groucho Marx line says, "These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."
#troll
Sounds like a crock to me. Double jeopardy is about retrying someone for a crime they've already been found innocent of, not reopening a prosecution. The former is of course all too common in politicized cases, and the only good argument for doing it here is that turnabout is salutary.
Anyway, Sailer doesn't link to the ruling (which I haven't red) but, from the CBS article he does link to, here it is, in case anyone wants to check to see if it has any merit:
https://ilcourtsaudio.blob.core.windows.net/antilles-resources/resources/dadcff96-2fa0-46b4-9d62-2c3aa687a0cd/People%20v.%20Smollett,%202024%20IL%20130431.pdf
A decent explanation of the ruling here
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/11/illinois-supreme-court-overturns-jussie-smollett-conviction/
Either Foxx was smart or Smollett was lucky (or he had a lawyer smarter than both of them) because Smollett forfeited his bond and performed a few hours of community service in the deal. That made the deal a quid pro quo rather than just a prosecutor deciding not to pursue charges. Since Smollett fulfilled his end of the deal the State of Illinois was bound by any reasonable view of contract law to keep theirs.
This might be a case of be careful what you wish for. Enabling the state to randomly violate plea deals with a quid pro quo because a new prosecutor says somebody got too good a deal could wind up hurting many more people than it helps.
Thanks.
(Sailer:)"Public outrage led to... Jussie being convicted ... But after 6 days, he was let out and pursued his appeal that he was the victim of DOUBLE JEOPARDY."
So, that is simply wrong.
Another more sophisticated hoax and Pam Bondi the new Trump proposal for AG.
"If you followed the story around the Trayvon Martin shooting and the subsequent arrest, jail and trial of George Zimmerman, you probably know the majority of what Florida AG Pam Bondi did. However, it was almost 12-years-ago now. So, for those who don’t remember here’s the story."
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/11/21/president-trump-nominates-pam-bondi-for-u-s-attorney-general-the-deep-swamp-smiles/
Trump Derangement Syndrome goes both ways. Trump 45 was a joke. Only a fool would expect Trump 47 to turn into a bad-ass version of Russell Kirk.
The person I associated with the attempt to frame Zimmerman was Angela Corey, but the money quote from your article is "..., Florida AG Bondi replaced the Sanford officials with State investigators working for a new “special prosecutor” Angela Corey, out of Jacksonville. /
District Attorney Angela Corey... was Pam Bondi’s campaign manager."
Wikipedia: "On August 30, 2016, Corey lost her re-election primary to Republican challenger and former Nassau County prosecutor Melissa Nelson[4] by nearly 50,000 votes, a margin of 38 percentage points.[5]" To be fair, the Zimmerman trial wasn't the only reason for her unpopularity.
IANAL but all he did was waste police time. This happens all the time without publicity, and probably to a greater degree. People attempting revenge on ex-spouses, business partner, etc, by making false accusations of criminality.
Smollett wanted a small dose of public sympathy, he got a large dose of public outrage.
He should be left alone by now.
Sorry no. If racism is the worst sin in our society today, then manufacturing it where it doesn’t exist—crying wolf, if you like—is the second-worst crime. Live by your own rules.
I'm not the forgiving type. Pursue him to the grave.
Jussie is the face of Hate Hoaxes. If he vanishes down the memory hole, the concept of the Hate Hoax vanishes.
Vanishes until the next one. Do you think we'll have better celebrities in the future?
Probably lucky to have had this much push-back. A more cravenly cucked place like Minneapolis would have had a perfunctory investigation before offering Jussie an apology; cash settlement; five statues; and renamed a couple schools after him.
Anybody else remember that Trump's initial reaction was to run interference for Smollett? While it was obvious from the start that this was a hoax, Trump's first statement was about how awful the alleged incident was, giving momentum to the hoaxers.
If anybody can find his initial statement I'd appreciate a link. The internet isn't what it used to be.
Trump condemns ‘horrible’ attack on actor Jussie Smollett
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/31/trump-condemns-attack-jussie-smollett-1140398 ft
The Jussie Smollett story broke on television so Trump had to react because he's wrapped up in a television culture.
No, he didn't HAVE to maker an ass of himself.
Trump also blamed George Zimmerman for defending himself against Thugvon
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/donald-trump-i-dont-disagree-with-verdict-but-george-zimmerman-is-not-going-to-heaven-very-quickly/
Thank you, I was not aware of his statements on Zimmerman.
The members of the Illinois Supreme Court who overturned Jussie Smollett's conviction:
- three Blacks;
- one White male Republican;
- three White-female Democrats.
If all 3 Blacks voted to symbolically vindicate the half-Black/half-Jewish, anti-White hate-hoaxer Jussie Smollett, it'd take only 1 of the 4 Whites to get it through.
(The final decision is reported as 5 votes to overturn, 0 votes against, 2 abstaining. The justice who authored the opinion was White-female Elizabeth Rochford.)
I ask: Why is the Illinois Supreme Court 3/7ths Black and only 1/7th White-Republican in a state that voted "only" 55-44 D in 2024? The number of Black justices, if randomly selected from a pool of people selected for merit, should be usually 0/7ths Black, and maybe one-tenth of the time it should be 1/7th Black (on randomized merit). A "3/7ths Black" share It doesn't make sense, except (obviously) because of political "rigging" of the system is in place, and the one-party-state-like machine that runs the show wants to reward Blacks.
----
Here are the seven Illinois Supreme Court justices:
-
(1.) Chief Justice, MARY JANE THEIS: White-female, b.1949, lifelong Democratic Party member. Her father (1910-1982) was, also a Chicago judge and lifelong Democratic member, of German-Catholic ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was born about 1881 in Germany and arrived in the USA in 1884. Her mother's side present in the USA at least several generations more, surnames including Rosier, Hays, and McCoid.
-
(2.) P. SCOTT NEVILLE, JR.: Black male, born in Chicago about 1949. (The 1950 Census found the city of Chicago to be 14% Black ["Negro"]; the state of Illinois, 7.4%.) The city continued to attract Blacks and would sit as high as 35-40% Black for decades (by late 1960s? to 2000s).
-
(3.) DAVID K. OVERSTREET: White male, born 1966, Mt. Vernon, Jefferson County, southern Illinois. His hometown region is a typical White-Midwest area politically: a former D-R swing area tipping in 2016-2024 to 75-25 Trump-voting (e.g., gave a 1300-vote margin to Bill Clinton in 1996 but an 8000-vote margins to Trump in 2020 and 2024. And that on the same total-county population (no net population growth). Judge Overstreet is a Republican. He is the only of that fine old species known as the White Heterosexual Middle-America Male on the Illinois Supreme Court in 2024. In most of Illinois history, all seven would have fit the description. The state of Illinois even today remains 58% White and probably easily 80%+ of the qualified pool is White (citizens, age 50+, with local roots, academically qualified or qualifiable for high-level legal work), but White males hold only 1 of 7 seats in this body.
-
(4.) LISA HOLDER WHITE: born 1968, Decatur, Illinois. This mid-Illinois town tipped into having a large Black population somewhere back there, a similar process ongoing at the same time as the bigger one in Chicago. University of Illinois, JD, 1993.
-
(5.) JOY V. CUNNINGHAM: Black female, born in New York, early 1950s. No apparent ties to Chicago before the early 1980s; earned a JD at John Marshall Law School, University of Chicago, 1982.
-
(6.) ELIZABETH M. ROCHFORD: White female, born 1960?, apparently a Catholic. Democrat. She authored the decision overturning Smollett's conviction, which four other justices joined (two abstaining).
-
(7.) MARY K. O'BRIEN: White female. born 1965 in Kankakee County, Illinois. (The county had a steady population, gave a 2000-vote margin to Obama-2008 but an 8000-vote margin to Trump-2020 and a 10,000-vote margin to Trump-2024. Mary K. O'Brien was/is a swing-district Democrat who can attract White Middle-America swing-voters. The first line in her Illinois Supreme Court bio stresses that she "was raised on her family's farm." JD, University of Illinois Champagne, 1994. She served in the Illinois state legislature, 1997-2003, as a Democrat.
-
As already mentioned, this list of seven -- three Blacks, three White-female Democrats, and one White-male Republican -- is not representative of the state. Illinois "only" went 55-44 Kamala-Trump in 2024. But this 55%-element, its elite and agenda-setters, do indeed run the system and set the agenda; on this state supreme court they have a 6/7ths [86%] supermajority.
Similar states in the vicinity which don't have an albatross like "big-Blue" Chicago, are all winnable for Republican immigration-restrictionists and those who rightfully resent a system that could produce such a Supreme Court. This was demonstrated in the 2016-2024 presidential elections; and Illinois (due to Chicago) is a warning-bell in a similar way that California is.
On which, see: https://hailtoyou.wordpress.com/2024/11/12/revisiting-the-sailer-strategy-after-the-trump-2024-victory-whites-cast-80-of-trumps-votes-but-some-call-the-sailer-strategy-obsolete-why/
"I ask: Why is the Illinois Supreme Court 3/7ths Black and only 1/7th White-Republican in a state that voted "only" 55-44 D in 2024?"
Obviously because the non-(D) fraction doesn't count if the politician nominating the IL Justices is a (D). And the (D)'s are all into performative pro-black racism.
But in this case the opinion seems to be right. Giving him the deal he was given may have reflected corruption, but he was given the deal by someone legally competent to give it to him and a new prosecutor can't just void a deal already accepted and acted upon.
Thanks, agree.
My general experience is that state Supreme Court justices trend plenty liberal, even in conservative states.
Shame is nothing to those who can’t blush
I think the decision is correct despite Smollett being a lowlife. Why do these things take nearly five years?
By happenstance I was just looking at an article about someone just executed by nitrogen inhalation. He had murdered someone at the age of 19. He was 50 when he was executed. In comparison this was done at warp speed.
The Trump administration will hopefully be frying bigger fish come January. I’m a lot more outraged that I’m taxed, however minimally, to support NPR than I am by this clown. He’s a laughingstock, let that be his cross to bear.
Republicans have, emptily, threatened NPR since Reagan.
Yes. And it’s such low-hanging fruit.
Kim Foxx needs to face justice too
Based on a quick skim:
The Court found that both Smollett and the prosecutors intended their agreement to be the final resolution of the case. He complied with the agreement, to his detriment. The state can't then decide to ignore its side of the agreement and prosecute him anyway. This is a slightly fuzzy area but it's not an unreasonable conclusion. From my reading, if prosecutors had withdrawn the deal before Smollett did anything in reliance on it, that would probably have been OK.
Basically the state screwed up by (1) offering him the deal in the first place and (2) going back on it when it became a PR headache. One can think both that Smollett's a dirtbag AND that the state screwed up the case against him.
Presumably, the state screwed up on purpose by giving Jussie a quid pro quo he could quickly fulfill.
The big problem is that the Chicago world of Richard J. Daley is long gone. The city of Chicago is run by a circus of idiots. Most of the proud, hard-working ethnic groups of Chicago have decamped to the suburbs. The whites of modern Chicago are all woke, happy to obey a dysfunctional city government as some sort of penance. Jussie Smollett is what Chicago deserves.
I realize logic is in short supply these days, but there’s one nagging issue I just can’t shake about hate hoaxes. Modern discourse suggests racism is the most heinous, evil sin one can commit. Racism makes you Literally Hitler. If that is true, if that is the principle upon which we build a society, then falsely accusing another of a racist act should be the second-worst crime, because it undermines trust at every level.
And yet, crickets. The world in which we live in is increasingly Kafkaesque in its arbitrary contradictions. The double binds that progressives impose are a good way to drive someone insane if they look too closely. I don’t know how Steve keeps his good humor.
It's easy to explain. The principle upon which the left builds its vision of society ISN'T that racism is evil. It's "Who, whom".
The analogy that comes to mind for me is Alex in "Clockwork Orange" (after he is "rehabilitated"):
White liberals (who rule the MSM and most of our culture) cannot physically or emotionally bring themselves to criticize a black person who can still plausibly play the Victim card. They can't bring themselves to skewer Jussie or the preposterous plagiarizer Claudine Gay or even clowns like Al Sharpton, Fani Willis, Lori Lightfoot or even women-beaters like Chris Brown, Mike Tyson or Dr Dre. It just feels too painful and uncomfortable to them, so they change the subject.
The only time a white liberal can criticize a black person is when they're conservative. Blasphemy and heresy are the only hanging offenses, everything else is based on Victim status.