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Hello there everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is March 17,
2022. I know it's St. Patrick's Day. I forgot to wear green. I'm catching hell for this already.
I'm going to change my shirt as soon as I finish these pop-ups this morning. It's 925 in the morning, and in the wee hours of the morning, Jussie Smollett
was released from a Chicago jail because his lawyers filed an appeal to the appellate division
of the courts in the state of Illinois, and they released him. So here's what happened. We all know about this case. He told the police that he was attacked in a gay bashing incident. The police spent about $125,000
or $150,000 in overtime investigating it, and they concluded that he made the whole thing up.
The prosecutor decided not to prosecute him in return for his paying a $10,000 fine and
performing some community service.
She was eventually overruled.
The court system appointed another prosecutor.
That prosecutor prosecuted him.
A jury found him guilty on five of six counts
of lying to the police.
Five different lies to the police.
He was exposed to three years in jail.
He was sentenced to 150 days in jail and $125,000 payment of restitution to the city of Chicago to. You usually don't do that in a crime that's not a violent crime. These are lies. There weren't
violence. There was some violence involved in the so-called attack on him, but it was a stunt. It
wasn't real violence. So normally a non-violent offender is given time, A, to appeal, and B, to prepare financial affairs
and whatever needs to be taken care of while he's away. The judge didn't buy any of that and sent
him away immediately. He left the courtroom, raised his fists, and said, I'm not suicidal,
I'm not innocent, I have nothing to be sorry for. Off he went to jail. His lawyers
filed an emergency appeal. Now, the appeal, the purpose of the appeal is to get him out of jail
during the appeal of the conviction. The purpose of the appeal is not to overturn the conviction.
The argument on appeal was interesting. He was only sentenced to 150 days.
In Chicago, in Illinois, that means about 110 days. You get time off for good time and good
behavior and working in the prison. It would take the appellate court more, longer than 110 or 120
or 150 days to rule on whether or not he was properly convicted,
meaning he could very well have finished his jail term and his appeal of his conviction would still
be pending. So last night, the appellate division in Illinois said he's right. He has the right to
be out on bail pending the filing of the appeal and their
ruling on the appeal. How long could that take? About two years. Who knows what Jussie will do,
but he's free. Here he is walking out of the Chicago jail in the wee hours.
He's coming out.
Okay.
So this is a crazy case.
We probably never would have heard of it had it not been for Jesse, who is a former star of Fox's show Empire.
In my opinion, he was properly convicted and properly sentenced.
The conviction will be upheld.
The evidence of his guilt is overwhelming.
The jury disbelieved his denials.
And in my opinion, the sentence was appropriate.
But it's going to take two years for the appellate courts to come either to the same conclusion that I did or to find that he was not properly convicted and to order another trial. The job of his lawyers now is to find
mistakes that the trial judge made or errors that the jury made and ask an appellate court
not to free him permanently, but to order a new trial. We'll see where it goes. Meantime,
he's out on what's called a permanent recognizance bail of $150,000. What does that mean? That means he signs a piece of
paper promising to show up whenever the court system needs him. If he fails to show, then the
bail will be $150,000. But right now there's no bail. He's free, waiting for his appeal to be
heard, which will probably be in 2024.
Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.