Smollett released pending appeal
Anyone surprised by this? Not me.
Smollett was granted a release on bond from the Cook County Jail in Illinois pending the appeal of his conviction. A panel of three appellate judges came down with the ruling in a 2-1 decision granting the former “Empire” star’s release after posting a personal recognizance bond of $150,000.
It is nearly the amount of the $120,106 restitution Smollett was ordered to repay after he was convicted of lying to Chicago police about being the victim of a hate crime in 2019.
The article goes on to discuss grounds for appeal – mainly double jeopardy – and the opinions of various lawyers on whether an appeal could work.
I predict that Smollett will not be seeing any more jail time.
The Babylon Bee observes: “Jussie Says He Fears For His Life As His Attackers Have Been Released.”
The period between now and the ruling by the appellate court could be mentally agonizing. If the appeal is denied (i.e., the judgment and sentence are affirmed), the period between now and the ruling would be additional punishment. Still not the punishment this narcissist deserves.
Well, he is black , gay, a leftist, a hate Trumper, which means ALL laws that are applicable to white folks, are not applicable to black folks like him.
So it makes perfect sense he will be a free person.
Welcome to today’s USA.
This situation will not end well.
“I don’t believe Jussie Smollett, but I recognize when a black man gets railroaded through a justice system out to get him”. Thus wrote Paul Butler recently in Pravda-on-the-Potomac; Butler has a well-compensated position at Georgetown Law and is infamous for arguing in favor of “jury nullification”. Could anyone seriously argue that, with the current state of legal education in this country and the wholly ideological monstrosity which is the FBI/DOJ ( to say nothing of “double jeopardy”, as in the Arbery case, legal sophistry notwithstanding, and the completely illegitimate and unconstitutional idea of “hate crimes”, as well as the horrific mistreatment of the J6 defendants), we still have a legal system which can still be defended rationally?
Chicago has been famously corrupt as long as I remember, and that is a long time. I grew up there and my father knew Al Capone. Judges have been a well known part of the corruption although it was mostly about Mafia and money. Now the city is run by black gangs that choose most aldermen and probably have a hand in the choice of judges.
The two judges who released Smollet were “elected” to the appellate court. One white, one black. Chicago style justice.
At the end of the day, all he really wanted to do was start a city-wide race riot that with any luck would have taken off and engulfed the nation.
And then, six months later after having planned his own lynching—got to give him credit for originality, though he should have fired his casting director for total, mind-numbing lack of judgment—he had to sit back helplessly and watch George Floyd steal the limelight.
And George Floyd wasn’t even an actor.
How excruciating that must have been. How absolutely insulting.
Surely he’s suffered enough….
“I don’t believe Jussie Smollett, but I recognize when a black man gets railroaded through a justice system out to get him”. Thus wrote Paul Butler recently in Pravda-on-the-Potomac; Butler has a well-compensated position at Georgetown Law and is infamous for arguing in favor of “jury nullification”.
Butler’s complaint is one implicit in the complaints of leftoids generally in re the Zimmerman case and others. The imposition of consequences on Smollet or on Trayvon Martin or on Michael Brown or on George Floyd or on Ryshard Brooks or on Ahmaud Aubery – the temporary detention of them detention of them in the course of mundane police work, or the mere act of observing and following them – is ipso facto an affront because a person of lower status (a deplorable) is acting above his station. The difference between black chauvinists like Butler is that they fancy they have an aristocratic status at birth, whereas the various and sundry characters on the bench and in various apparats fancy they confer it on their clients (blacks), who are of higher status than police officers or neighborhood randos (deplorables). This is not a sustainable social or cultural system and the only way it stops is if the gentry twits who enforce it are run completely out of institutional life.
A dear friend of mine, a resident of the old 11th ward in Rochester, offered this statement of social and political principle 45 years ago: “I’m not going to kill you, but I’m not going to let you kill me”. The resistance to the project of liberal twits to remanufacture a nobility has to be resisted with every tool in the box. Because it involves ruining institutions of law, there will come a point where the law is disregarded. It’s their choice.
Being at liberty while appeals are pending is not unusual. What is unusual is to have people guilty of little or nothing sitting in jail for 14 months. (Smollet’s appeal is another indicator that the man is a sociopath indulged by everyone around him).
Barry Meislin: “At the end of the day, all he really wanted to do was start a city-wide race riot that with any luck would have taken off and engulfed the nation.”
I suppose it could have succeeded if he had arranged to be actually lynched. His zeal for the cause was deficient.
Barry Meislin on March 17, 2022 at 5:09 pm said “And George Floyd wasn’t even an actor.”
Barry Meislin:
I’m not saying you should know this, but George Floyd was a porn star, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Was he a better actor than Juicy Smolay? I don’t know, I’ve never seen “Empire.”
Nothing to add really. Justice for thee, but not for me.
One would hope that Prof. Butler would be mugged by reality. Would then argue for jury nullification?
I have to say that I might, if on a jury, go the nullification route though.
Depending on the case and circumstances.
“I predict that Smollett will not be seeing any more jail time.”-Neo
Technically he has not served any actual jail time yet. He was sent straight for mental observation. Which generally is restricted but somewhat better accommodations than general population.
But I agree with your conclusion. What little punishment he has had will likely be considered time served when the courts get around to ruling on this in a year or two.
This similar pattern seems to endlessly repeat. Where famous or connected people are able to put off these kinds of punishments until its politically acceptable to quietly dismiss them during a busy news cycle.
Frankly had the Ukraine not been eating up all the air time. I doubt they would have even pulled this stunt to begin with
My Lord! Are you saying that Smollett was actually upstaged by a PORN STAR???…not that we have anything against PORN STARS, heaven forbid (in fact, maybe Floyd’s ambition was to become the next Sly Stallone…well, we’ll never know); but I would most certainly hope that Smollett wasn’t aware of this, um, bizarre not to mention ironic twist (i.e., weren’t his “white supremacist” “attackers”—I told you that casting director was a real dud!—or one of them, dabbling in the, um, genre?) because if he DID know, I’m pretty sure it would make life simply unbearable for him.
“This is not a sustainable social or cultural system…” Art Deco
Indeed no two tiered ‘justice’ system is sustainable. But upon what basis might one imagine that sustainability is even of minimal consideration in their calculus?
Could I, as a white guy, please have some of HIS white privilege?
Call me pedantic, but am I the only one bothered by reading that $150,000 “is nearly the amount of the $120,106 restitution . . . . ”
No it’s not. The first figure is well in excess of the second one, by almost 25%. That is the equivalent of saying 8 is nearly 10. Who would ever say that?
Hello! Is there an editor in the house? No? Anywhere? Apparently not.
There’s nothing unusual about releasing, on bond, someone who is appealing a conviction. Will his appeal succeed? Maybe, but unless it does, he’ll be back in jail.
And why is he claiming that he won’t commit suicide? Does he have something on the Clintons? 🙂
It’s easy to be entirely cynical about Smollett and the current situation. I understand.
However, Smollett’s hoax was flagrant enough and stupid enough to piss off a fair amount of Chicago’s progressive power structure. Note Rahm Emanuel’s response back in 2019 when the charges against Smollett were initially dropped.
_____________________________
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel strongly condemned the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office decision to drop all charges against Jussie Smollett, calling it a “whitewash of justice.”
“This is a whitewash of justice,” Emanuel said Tuesday afternoon during a fiery press conference alongside Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson. “A grand jury could not have been clearer.”
https://www.thewrap.com/chicago-mayor-rahm-emanuel-calls-jussie-smolletts-dropped-charges-a-whitewash-of-justice/
_____________________________
Rahm Emanuel was President Obama’s Chief of Staff, then later the Mayor of Chicago.
So I don’t take it as a given that of course Smollett will get off without jail time. I’m sure whatever happens will be less than he deserves, but he has taken some damage and more may be coming.
And why is he claiming that he won’t commit suicide?
buddhaha:
I have a few thoughts on that.
I believe Smollett’s primary motivation was not “selfishness” for fame and money as the conventional wisdom goes. I argue that he comes from a black power family and his hoax was to further the black power agenda.
Specifically, to support Kamala Harris and Cory Booker’s “Emmett Till Antilynching Act.” (Which passed a couple weeks ago.) Hence the prominent noose motif in Smollett’s hoax.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till_Antilynching_Act
Since his motivation was political, of course he continues to protest his innocence. He could easily have walked on this charge with a wrist slap, had he only owned up to the hoax, apologized and asked forgiveness.
But Smollett, in his peculiar way, has more integrity than that. If his godmother, Angela Davis, could risk imprisonment and even execution to conspire to smuggle weapons into a Marin courtroom on behalf of two black brothers, surely Jussie Smollett could hoax a race attack on himself, then maintain his innocence no matter how absurd.
Furthermore, I wouldn’t put it past Smollett, in the light of his suicide comment, to imagine killing himself in prison — if it got really bad — so he could be a martyr to the cause.
It’s good to lay the groundwork early.
@ huxley > “I wouldn’t put it past Smollett, in the light of his suicide comment, to imagine killing himself in prison — if it got really bad — so he could be a martyr to the cause.”
Agree with your analysis except for this.
I think he is too narcissistic to put posthumous future glory ahead of potential live continuation of The Cause.
And I doubt anybody else thinks he would make a good martyr for the cause, because there is no obvious “fall guy” to blame for killing him.
Could be that he’s distraught that he blew this extraordinary cameo.
Flubbed what could have been “his finest hour”.
Could be…
Or maybe, er, he just got caught. (The most ridiculous actor since John Wilkes Booth? …YMMV.)
And yet, and yet…REDEMPTION is still possible. The Comeback Kid can STILL “conquer” his audience, emerge victorious. EMPIRE indeed! And one can actually witness that imperious, if cliche-ed mind firing on all cylinders; see the hackneyed creative juices coursing through his proud-victim’s veins…
…as he presents his breathless audience—taking his cue from the MASTER of the absurd—“The Jussie Smollett Hoax: THE SEQUEL!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8yZKMow0ME
File under: “All the world’s a…courtroom”(?)
because there is no obvious “fall guy” to blame for killing him.
You mean besides some white prison official.
Hoping that his legal fees dwarf the fine and restitution. But I suspect the lawyers are doing it as a loss leader for their own marketing.
I think he is too narcissistic to put posthumous future glory ahead of potential live continuation of The Cause.
AesopFan:
That’s why I added the qualification: “imagine killing himself in prison.”
I also wonder how terrified Smollett — a soft, pretty, gay guy — might be of prison life. I sure would be.
In Nebraska, we don’t elect judges. They do, however, stand for retention. I can’t imagine any other system.