Judge Orders Special Prosecutor To Review Handling Of Jussie Smollett Case
He expected the PD to not be interested? This ain’t the Sixties!
This kind of thing makes my head hurt. Smollett is claiming that he wasn’t lying, that it really was a hate crime, and also that the police should not have investigated as much as they did? They should just have shrugged their shoulders when Smollett went on the talk shows and said, “Well, we’ll get to it when we can - sorry, but we can’t afford to spend that much money.”
In a funny way, I can see Smollett’s point - I have no doubt whatever that he didn’t want the police to investigate enough to find out what really happened.
Regards,
Shodan
When I saw your headline, I thought for sure the link was going to be to The Onion. Hard to believe a legal team would make such an assertion. You know that if the police did not investigate (or give only a cursory investigation) into a supposed hate crime, legal groups and activists and the press, etc. etc. would be all over that as police malpractice or something.
David Chappelle’s take on “juicy”: https://youtu.be/wZXoErL2124
It’s not a crazy legal argument but I don’t think it will work. The city is suing him to recover the cost of his investigation. His lawyers are moving to dismiss the case based on the idea that, under Illinois law, Smollett can only be liable for damages that were foreseeable. The judge will decide the motion to dismiss under the assumption that factual disputes are viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. So, in this case, the judge will have to assume that the city is correct when it says that: Smollett was never attacked, he filed a false police report, and the city spent 1800 hours investigating. Smollett’s argument is that it is unforeseeable that the city would investigate a simple, non-fatal, assault for 1800 hours. And really, do you think every time a black man in Chicago is assaulted, the police spend 1800 hours hunting down leads?
Unfortunately for Smollett, it was probably foreseeable that the police would spend a lot more time than normal investigating an inflammatory hate crime against a politically-connected celebrity that received national and international press coverage at a time when Chicago police’s apathy to minorities and fecklessness solving crimes are both sources of criticism to the department.
The city wants the money for 1,836 hours of police overtime. So while the police would be expected to investigate the crime why would they need overtime to do it? Jussie was not injured. You just investigate in normal working hours and it takes a few more days to solve…
Then, it seems to me, he shouldn’t have filed a police report. He could have done everything exactly the same, except for involving the police. He could have posted all the pictures on instagram, gone on talk shows, held press confrences and whatever else he wanted to do. The police could have answered all questions from the media with a simple “He hasn’t filed a police report, we encourage him to come in and speak with one of our detectives so we can locate the individual or individuals responsible for this attack and bring them to justice” and Jussie could have blown off the same question by saying “there weren’t any witnesses, no one saw anything, I didn’t see any point in reliving it over and over as I have to explain it to every CPD officer that wants to ask the same questions and for what, there never going to find them”. He could even claim to have hired a private investigator.
In any case, if he had left the cops out of it, he would have gotten exactly what he wanted and wouldn’t have been caught in this mess.
High-profile hate crime:
I agree with Smollett. I think it’s a hate crime to create a fake crime based on race.
Looks like the Special Prosecutor may have access to new evidence that may make several folks run for the hills.
Back in December a judge granted a search warrant to the prosecutor to obtain through Google, Smollett’s emails, including drafts and deleted emails. This has just been recently made public, meaning that Jussie, just only recently was made aware. Apparently State attorney Foxx that dropped all of Jussie’s charges, has now obtained personal counsel in this case…were there incriminating emails between her and Jussie?
Whoa. This could get interesting.
Interesting indeed! Kim Foxx is up for re-election on March 17th.
Doubt was cast
\ on the {open-and-shut} nature
\ of the case
\ when {Fraternal Order of Police President} Kevin Graham wrote the Justice Department
\ following reports
\ {that {Cook County State's Attorney} Kim Foxx asked {Police Superintendent} Eddie Johnson
\ to let the FBI investigate {Smollett's} allegations
\ that he was attacked by two masked men
\ after the {former} chief of staff to {former first lady} Michelle Obama allegedly informed Foxx
\ that {Smollett's} family had concerns
\ about the probe.
(I’m assuming the alleged information came after Foxx’s asking, rather than after Smollett’s alleging, nor rather after the attack itself.)
(Is there a way to get a wider Code box? I don’t like scroll bars.)
if he showed for court, why would bonder need to pursue payment?
Bail bonders are illegal in Illinois. There are no (legal) bail bonders in Illinois.
Answered in post 28.
Ludavic was trying to explain why Smollett had a $100,000 bond, but only forfeited $10,000. He was incorrect in his explanation.
Your statement is essentially correct, except in Illinois it is the court that would pursue the full value of the bond if the accused doesn’t show. No bail bonders, no bounty hunters, but a bench warrant and police. But he showed for all court appearances, and the agreement was to forfeit the 10% bond paid, or $10,000.
And in general, you are correct that a bail bonder doesn’t need to pursue the rest of the money since they don’t forfeit that money if the accused doesn’t flee.
He’s been indicted again, by a special prosecutor, Dan Webb.
(Auto playing video.)