On Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Jussie Smollett —one of the stars from the popular television series “Empire” — would have his 2019 hate crime hoax conviction overturned. Now, conservatives are going in on X (formerly Twitter) about how Smollett’s race played a major role in this decision.
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Smollett was initially charged with staging a fake hate crime against himself. He was ultimately convicted on five counts of disorderly conduct and lying to the police for the scheme, per court documents.
However, the court found that special prosecutors violated Smollett’s constitutional rights in bringing a new indictment against him after his original charge was dropped and he agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond. The actor will appear in court next to hear the formal dismissal of the charges.
The case caught national attention. Although the conviction being overturned stemmed from prosecutorial error, MAGA supporters on X have a different interpretation of what happened. “Democrats get away with anything,” one user wrote.
Another user, @JuevosBanchero, took things a step further by insisting that being Black is the reason Smollett’s conviction was vacated.
“Jussie Smollett is above the law largely because of his connections, but also because of his race. He belongs to a privileged class in this age of activist justice, when a man like Daniel Penny must stand trial before a kangaroo court because of his race,” they stated.
Another conservative X personality, @DogRightGirl, actually used the term “Black privilege” to describe the so-called injustice she feels that was carried out.
Another user, @Slayteens, quickly followed suit and repeated the phrase to insist Smollett’s Blackness worked in his favor regarding his legal woes—which is just untrue.
On Thursday, Smollett’s attorney Nenye E. Uche thanked the Illinois Supreme Court for “restoring order to Illinois’ criminal law jurisprudence.”
“This was not a prosecution based on facts, rather it was a vindictive persecution and such a proceeding has no place in our criminal justice system,” Uche said per USA Today.
“Ultimately, we are pleased that the rule of law was the big winner today.”
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