The overturned conviction comes after an Illinois appellate court ruled against Smollett’s appeal in a 2-1 decision in Dec. 2023, at which time his legal team turned to the state’s Supreme Court.
At the time, Smollett’s legal team argued the actor was improperly charged with the same crime twice, and that the trial court was also “influenced by improper aggravating factors” when he received his sentence, ABC Chicago reported, citing Capitol News Illinois.
Additionally, his attorney Nunye Uche argued that Smollett’s previous agreement with the State’s Attorney Office—which would have seen the actor surrender his $10,000 bond and perform community service in return for not being prosecuted—should have prevented a trial in the first place, per NBC Chicago.
Since the controversy—which saw the 42-year-old accused of paying two brothers $3,500 to stage the hate crime, which he’s continuously denied—Smollett’s character was written off Empire, and he remained largely off of viewers’ screens until the release of The Lost Holliday in 2024 which he starred in alongside Vivica A. Fox.
