Judging Freedom - Jussie Smollett Sentenced Directly to Jail

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

30 months probation can travel pay $120k in restitution and a $25k fine 150 days in jail immediately --for lying to police about a staged hate crime in Chicago #Jussie #SmollettSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello there everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, March 10, 2022. It's about 9-10 in the evening on the East Coast. If you've been watching us the past few minutes, I appreciate your patience. We've had the proverbial technical difficulties, but we ironed it out, and here we are. A few hours ago, a state superior court judge in Chicago finished the sentencing of Jesse Smollett. You remember this crazy case. Jesse is the actor from Fox's series The Empire and he concocted um a fake uh there's my little chris chris chris you're on television he concocted he's a ham like his like his owner he concocted a uh a false attack on himself and reported to the police not only a false attack, but a false anti-gay attack.

Jesse is openly gay, and he hired two bodybuilders that he knew from his gym to act like they were attacking and harming him and to shout anti-gay slurs. And he called the police and reported it. And he repeated this story to the police over and over again. And he induced the police to go on a wild goose chase looking for perpetrators that didn't exist, because in fact there was no crime, there was no attack, it was all an act. He did it to further his career, to generate sympathy with his bosses at Fox. Listen, I worked for Fox for 24 years. You don't endear yourself to your bosses by concocting a false attack on yourself,

but he did. Originally, the prosecutor agreed not to prosecute him, and then saner heads prevailed. A judge appointed a special prosecutor, and Jesse was prosecuted. He testified in his own behalf. His testimony was not believable. The jury convicted him on five out of six counts. Each one of those counts was a lie with consequences. What do I mean by that? If you lie to a cop saying it's two o'clock in the afternoon when it's really three, if the cop asks you the time of day and it's inconsequential, it's not material, that's not a crime. But if you lie to a cop and the police department spends resources researching the lie or looking up what you

told them going on a wild goose chase, well, that's a crime. It's a little different in the federal system. If you lie to the FBI about anything, that's a crime, even though the FBI can lie to you. You probably heard me rant and rave about that. It's an issue for another time, what lies are criminal and what lies are not. But this jury convicted Jesse of five out of six counts. Each count was a lie. Each time he told this story, he generated the expenditure of more Chicago police funds looking for culprits who he knew they would never find. A judge today sentenced him to seven months in jail. It's 150 days.

Fined him $125,000. That is roughly the cost of the police overtime as a result of the lies that he told and imposed three years of probation. I think the sentence was fair. If Jussie did not have a prior criminal record, which consisted of crimes of deception, using his brother's name when he was arrested, using somebody else's name when he was arrested, using somebody else's name when he was arrested, denying that he had been arrested to the police when they knew that he had, it might not have indicated crime. If it had been one law, jail time, if it had been one lie, it might not have indicated jail time. But these are repeated lies told over and over and over

again. At least, according to the government, six times the jury accepted five of them. Now, I've sentenced over a thousand persons in my career, and it's not a gut instinct thing. There are charts you have to fill out. There's a list of aggravating factors, and there's a list of mitigating factors. The aggravating factors are usually the events surrounding the crime and the attitude of the defendant that make things worse. The mitigating factors are events surrounding the crime and the attitude of the defendant that make things less. So one of the aggravating factors is the defendant showed no remorse. That's Jussie. One of the mitigating factors is the defendant did show remorse. That's not Jussie.

One of the aggravating factors is the defendant considered his crime a cost of doing business, much like the mob. That's Jussie. So if you go through this list, I'm not going to go through all of them. There are 20 to 25 different in each state aggravating factors and 20 to 25 mitigating. If the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating, then the sentence is higher. If the mitigating factors outweigh the aggravating, then the sentence is less. Of course, Jussie, who had the opportunity to address the court, chose not to. Big mistake. Then he made another mistake after sentence had been imposed, and as he was being led from the courtroom. Take a look at this. What you can't tell is that immediately before that, and the judges left the bench, so this doesn't affect the sentencing, he shouted, I am not suicidal. I am innocent. I am innocent. I didn't do this,

and you should know that. Well, he had the time to explain that to the judge, and he didn't take the time. He instead shouted it to the galleries as the police were taking him away. One thing that was unusual was that the jail sentence starts tonight. Most judges would give criminal defendants who are not violent people who are likely to flee a couple of days or even a couple of weeks, sometimes a couple of months to get their affairs in order before they go away. But Jussie, unless an appellate court is interceded and there'd be no basis for the intercession, Jussie is in jail as we speak. This is a lesson to be learned by everybody. This is a kid who had a good career ahead of him and had a great job at a Fox syndicated show, which was very, very popular. And then he did a stupid thing.

Instead of admitting he did wrong, he made it worse. Now he's paying the price. Judge Napolitano, judging freedom.