#RolandMartinUnfiltered - La. Juvenile Facility investigated, Jussie Smollett Sentenced, Arbery Killers Appeal Fed Conviction

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

3.10.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: La. Juvenile Facility investigated, Jussie Smollett Sentenced, Arbery Killers Appeal Fed ConvictionJussie Smollett scheduled to be sentenced for lying to police in hate crime hoaxProPublica and other media outlets investigated what's being called Louisiana's Harshest Juvenile Lockup facility. The Acadiana Center for Youth at St. Martinville is a high-security juvenile detention facility with no outside oversight where teens were held in solitary confinement for weeks. One of ProPublica's reporters will tell us how the facility violated the state's policies.Two white men convicted on federal hate crimes in the Ahmaud Arbery case seek an acquittal because the murder happened on a "private street." Legal Analyst Candace Kelly will explain what that means.Wednesday, we told you about Connecticut's House Bill 5349, sparked by the deaths of two black Bridgeport women. Tonight, we have one of the bill's sponsors, and attorney Darnell Crossland will let us know what's next in getting the law passed.Colin Kaepernick's organization Know Your Rights Camp has launched an Autopsy Initiative offering free autopsies to families of those killed by law enforcement. One of the medical examiners associated with the initiative will join us tonight.Bodycam video and the 9-1-1 call of Ryan Coogler's arrest are released. You won't believe the careless mistakes that lead to the "Black Panther" director being in handcuffs.And people of color, Black, Latinos, and Native Americans, got undercounted in the 2020 census at rates higher than ten years ago.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Nissan | Check out the ALL NEW 2022 Nissan Frontier! As Efficient As It Is Powerful! 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3FqR7bPSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com#RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Să facem o pătrunjelă. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scape. It's time to be smart.

Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Today is Thursday, March 10th, 2022. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, we will go live to Chicago, where Dusty Smollett is awaiting sentencing after being found guilty of making up a crime in the Windy City. Also on today's show, folks, we'll continue to break down the truth about HBCU funding in the federal government.

Why do black media keep screwing this up and why do people keep lying and making things up? You keep hearing about this 45 billion that was promised to HBCUs. It was not just to HBCUs. I will explain again for the people in the back who don't listen. ProPublica and other media outlets investigated

what's being called Louisiana's harshest juvenile lockup facility. The Acadia Center for Youth at St. Martinville is a high security juvenile detention facility with no outside oversight, where teens were held in solitary confinement for weeks. One of ProPublica's reporters will tell us how the facility violated the state's policies.

Two white men convicted of federal hate crimes in the Montalbary case face seeking acquittal because the murder happened on a private street. Really? Legal analyst Candace Kelly will explain why, what the story is. Also Wednesday, folks, we told you about Connecticut's House Bill 5349 sparked by the deaths of two black Bridgeport, Connecticut women. Tonight we have one of the bill's sponsors, the attorney Darnell Crossland,

for one of the families who will be with us to talk about what's next in getting the law passed. Colin Kaepernick's organization, Know Your Rights Camp, has instructed, first of all, has launched an autopsy initiative offering free autopsies to families of those killed by law enforcement. One of the medical examiners associated with the initiative will join us tonight.

Plus, body cam video, the 911 call of Ryan Coogler's arrest in Atlanta in January has been released. Folks, it's worse than what we described yesterday. And people of color, blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans got undercounted in the 2020 census at rates higher than 10 years ago. Which is why we called out the advertising agencies,

the white ad agencies that wouldn't give money to black-owned media and others to avert this very thing. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, let's go. He's got it, whatever the biz, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland, breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling

Best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling Yeah, yeah It's on for a roll, roll, y'all Yeah, yeah It's rolling, Martin, yeah

Yeah, yeah Rolling with Roland now Yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Roland Martin Now Martin Folks, this is a live look in the Chicago courtroom where Jesse Smollett is awaiting sentencing in his case. It has been going on for several hours.

A little bit earlier, his lawyers tried to overturn the conviction, stating that a variety of things, including double jeopardy, because it proves to be adjudicated. The judge rejected that, said he indeed got a fair sentence. Let's listen to what some of the lawyers are saying. Those entries are before February 15, 2019. Why is that important? It's important because on February 15, 2019,

the Oshundayah brothers, according to testimony, confessed allegedly to this incident. And that was the day detectives let them go and began the investigation on Mr. Smollett. So why do we now have charges, most of which are after 215. Judge, the second point I'll make is we're asking you to adopt the previous sanctions. Mr. Webb tries to dress it up like a forfeiture.

Call it what you want. Mrs. Smollett was fined $10,000. Black Laws Dictionary, that's a fine. You can't punish a person twice. And I know you've denied the motion. That's fine, but that's not why I'm bringing it up. Because there's an Eighth Amendment issue

here. Cruel and unusual punishment. Punishment that is too severe. Alright, folks. And again, they are presenting witnesses to testify to his character. They brought up, of course, his civil rights work. We're going to be monitoring this to see if a decision on the sentencing of Justice Millette happens while we are live. Let's now talk about this story out of Louisiana, folks.

A juvenile correction facility in Louisiana has been the subject of several investigations after prison officials reported mistreatment, abuse, and lack of education that came to light. Folks, the Acadiana Center for Youth at St. Martinsville facility is a few hours from Baton Rouge and New Orleans. ProPublica teamed up with other news outlets to investigate the treatment of teens at the facility. They uncovered how the teens were held in solitary confinement nearly 24 hours a day,

shackled, not receiving mental health or substance abuse treatment. These teens, of course, screamed and banged on walls daily. An anonymous staff member provided a recording to ProPublica. Folks, I wanna warn you again. What you're about to hear is extremely disturbing. Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok Joining us from New Orleans is Annie Waldman from ProPublica. She's in New Orleans.

Annie, glad to have you on the show. How long did y'all report this case? And just walk us through what else y'all discovered. Roland, thank you so much for having me on. So we actually spent the past four months looking at this story. And what we found was that over the past year or two, there's been a wave of violence and escapes at juvenile facilities across Louisiana. And state officials were trying to figure out some way to, you know, handle it. And so what they did was that they quietly and somewhat secretly opened this new facility in a 24-cell jail where they could hold the most troubled teens in their care. But what they

ended up doing was creating a powder keg. And you went over some of the details of what we found, but let me just read them back to you. Essentially, these kids were held in round-the-clock solitary confinement, 23, sometimes 24 hours a day, with little education, no substance abuse counseling, and very little programming. They were shackled with handcuffs and leg irons when they were let out to shower,

and they were given all of their meals through a slot in their doors. At least two of the teens in this facility harmed themselves so badly that they required medical attention. Some of the kids destroyed beds and shattered light fixtures, acting out most likely due to this kind of treatment, and they used the metal shards from the lights to hack holes in the walls large enough for them to escape. On several occasions, the guards responded to these transgressions with violence. Three slammed door hatches on teens' hands. One struck a boy with his knee, and he even fired pepper spray into a cell where a kid was there handcuffed, leaving a teen coughing and vomiting. We spoke with two teens in the facility

who described the trauma of the isolation, saying that they were in their cells all day and that you can't even really think about it while you're in there, because if you do, it will make you sad. It will bring that trauma to the surface. We also spoke to a former employee who described kids just sitting in their cells

with no beds sometimes on a concrete floor with a state-issued green mattress, maybe a blanket, a sheet, but nothing else. No light, no nothing. And that's really kind of what we found when we started looking into this. I also want to note that what is so horrifying about this is that Black children are also overrepresented at every step in the criminal justice process. But at this facility, 80% of the kids are black. We have a criminal justice system that over criminalizes and over polices and over adultifies black children from the moment of arrest until the moment of lockup.

Percent. You also reported they were violating state policies. How so? So essentially, they're not supposed to use solitary confinement on kids for more than 12 hours a day. And these kids were sometimes being held in there for 23 hours at a time, sometimes even more than that. On top of that, kids are required to have an education, even in juvenile justice facilities, for at least six hours a day. We found that sometimes these kids didn't have any education at all for the first three months. And then after that, sometimes it was just worksheets once a day, once a week. I mean, it wasn't very much at all. Definitely not living up to state standards and also not up to federal

law. What has been the response of Louisiana? First of all, we're talking about a state where they have had heinous treatment for decades when it comes to inmates. So what Louisiana has started to do is actually just last week, as we were reporting out this story, one of the state senators that we interviewed for our story, Royce DuPlessis, he actually introduced a bill that would limit solitary confinement to only four hours, and there would be a lot more support and programming for kids while they were in the cells. They would be able to see mental health counselors. They would be in touch with their families.

So really, it seems like it's a drastic difference from what is happening right now. That bill has just been introduced and it's going to work its way through the Senate. We also heard from the governor who said he was very concerned about the treatment of kids in the facility as well. How did they not know? It's a good question. So essentially what happened was that the Office for Juvenile Justice of the state, they wanted to find a way to deal with these kids that they, you know, could not handle in the facilities very quickly. And so they put this together in a course of just a couple of months. It doesn't seem like they informed any of the juvenile judges about this.

They didn't inform any of the parents that they were transferring their kids from these more rehabilitative dormitory-like settings into this very prison-like setting. They didn't inform the lawyers about this as well. So oftentimes, lawyers wouldn't even know where their kids were at. I mean, it's shocking the amount of, you know, secrecy, quote unquote, which is what advocates have called it. The state has kind of been operating under when they opened up this facility. So that's it? The governor expressed his concern? That's it? At this point, I mean, we're hoping, you know, it's only been a day since we published this.

And as an investigative reporter, I believe the impact is the most important thing we can get from our reporting. So we're hoping that there are other politicians across the state who might take this up and do something about it. Absolutely stunning. Well, this is one of the reasons why reporting matters. The amount of time that y'all spent on it, I tell people all the time, look, this stuff doesn't happen in a day or two. It really takes a lot of digging. So absolutely great report by ProPublica. Folks, please go to ProPublica's website and check out this critically important report. Annie, thanks a lot. Thank you so much.

I'm going to bring in my panel right now. Dr. Larry Walker, assistant professor at the University of Central Florida. Risa Colbert, founder of Black Women Views. Dr. Craig Carr, Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. Greg, I'm going to start with you. Louisiana, as I said, people want to understand what, when we hear these stories about Guantanamo Bay, we hear these stories about how people are treated in prisons in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, other places. Yeah, I think you can put Louisiana in the same category. Well, yes, we should. In fact, we should put it there first. Typically, when the United

States government is engaged in criminal behavior overseas, they will refer to the places they disappear human beings as black sites. I think that is absolutely incorrect. They should be called around the world and here in Louisiana, which prides itself by some call itself the lockup capital of the world, white sites. This is a white site that was opened in last summer. And the Department of Education, as you said, as you were talking to her, wasn't even informed for months. And as she walked through it, as you know, we've were talking to her, wasn't even informed for months.

And as she walked through it, as you know, we've all read the report, the educator they had on the ground was 84 years old, a retired educator who then said they couldn't come back because of health reasons, then passed away, and they haven't met anybody since. So, Roland, I think the last question you asked her was the salient question. What does the governor think? Now, we know yesterday John Bel Edwards vetoed the attempt by the white nationalist party to draw maps to put white nationalism in power in Louisiana for the next 10 years. And, of course, we're going to see that in the courts. The white nationalist party in Louisiana is two, no, three seats short of a supermajority in that state.

They have no intention of reform. This is a battle that we're going to have to fight by doing exactly what you're doing, and it's leading the broadcast tonight for a reason. This has to be made public. Yeah. Absolutely shameful in this, Recy. Again, we're talking about this is a juvenile.

This is, people need to understand, this is the same state where the case went all the way to the Supreme Court in terms of keeping juvenile, sentencing juveniles to life in prison. Yeah, and you know, the crazy part about it is, you know, we have a tendency to, in our society, I won't say this is a Black thing, but in our society, to look at people in criminal, in jail as though you did the crime, now you got to pay the time. But when you're talking about juveniles, even if you feel that way about adults, which I don't think is appropriate in most cases anyway, but when you're talking about juveniles, the whole point of juvenile detention is to actually rehabilitate and so that they go on to live productive lives. It's not to throw them away in a cell and lock the key. And what this method of detention is doing is it's actually about exacerbating the mental issues, mental health issues that a lot of these kids are coming in there with.

One kid in the story went in there because he stole a car. And so in bouncing around a bunch of different detention centers, he ended up in this place in solitary confinement. And so when you hear that gut-wrenching audio of these kids, you know, yelling out, crying out, it's torture and it's unnecessary. And yes, you can point to the way that they're lashing out violently. Of course they are, because they're being tortured. Anybody would respond in that way to get the hell out of those cruel and inhumane situations. And so, you know, as you pointed out and as Dr. Carr pointed out, Louisiana is a beast of its own, but we have to take a hard look at and demand better

treatment for Black juveniles in particular, because however the rules are, they're always going to be applied most harshly to Black kids. A white kid on a joyride is not going to end up in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. The key right there is torture, Larry. It's torture. American-sanctioned torture. Yeah, you know, Roland, I was just in Louisiana this past weekend. And, you know, listen to the audio. You know, as a parent and as a Black male,

because we know predominantly these young men are young men, Black men, young men. And it is about how black people are dehumanized. Right. So let's talk about a few stats. We know that black children in pre-K through 12 settings are three to five times more likely to be suspended or expelled. Right. We also know from research that black children, when it comes to white children, less likely to see, they're more likely to seem to be old, right? I highlight those two data points because it once again has this concept, this idea about black people, particularly black children being dehumanized. So it says a lot about a society in terms of how you treat your children, right? So you have children being confined to a jail cell for 23, 24 hours out of the day.

There are those of us who can't even spend an hour in their office. So let alone you have people who are being constantly traumatized for each day, each week, each month in a cell with no light, possibly no bed. It's once again how we dehumanize Black people. And I'll tell you what, Roland, if our country is continuously dealing with this pattern of race-based violence, and you cannot expect, well, certainly they don't expect, you know, to rehabilitate these young people, but you cannot treat humans like this. And once again, Black folks are constantly, consistently being treated like this throughout our nation's history.

And let me know something that, Roland, is really important. I hope people don't think that Louisiana is the only place where this is happening, right? Because we hear stories like this periodically, right? If this wasn't reported, then it would continue to go, it would continue to happen. And then folks at the state level know this is happening. It's like this wasn't happening in isolation. And lastly, Brother Carr kind of talked about black sites, not using the word black sites, right? This is something out of some kind of spy novel, right? And once again, we talk about America, how we treat children and how we criticize other nations on human rights violations. But I'd say one thing. I see you, America.

Indeed, that is exactly what we see. And it is unfortunate. But again, when I talk about torture, we talk about how we treat people in this country. And the response from folks there is simply, is simply insufficient to say we're disturbed. No. There should be immediate hearings in Louisiana. There should be immediate moves to terminate people.

In fact, what the governor should be doing is ordering, well it's a little hard to say the governor should be immediate moves to terminate people. In fact, what the governor should be doing is ordering, well, it's a little hard to say the governor should be ordering state troopers into that prison, considering we have a cover-up there as well when it comes to the Ronald Greene case. And so Louisiana, across the board, you don't know who the hell to trust there to get justice in that particular state. Got to go to break. When we come back. We're going to talk about two of the white racists who killed Ahmaud Arbery. They're trying to appeal their sentence. We're also watching what happens in Chicago on the sentencing of Justice Boulinette. We'll also talk about HBCU funding and why do people consistently want to lie about the funding.

We're going to give you the truth because we actually did what other people, so-called black media people, didn't do, is pick the damn phone up and double check and not rely on mainstream media's reporting. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. ДИНАМЖЕННАЯ МУЗЫКА Don't you think it's time to get wealthy? I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show on the Black Star Network

focuses on the things your financial advisor or bank isn't telling you. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Pull up a chair, take your seat. The Black Tape with me, Dr. Greg Carr seat, at the Black Tape. With me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive

into the world we're living in. Join the conversation, only on the Black Star Network. Hey, I'm Deion Cole from Blackest. Hey everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered. Hey, I'm Deon Cole from Blackest. Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered. The father and son convicted of federal hate crimes connected to the death of Ahmaud Arbery. Yep, these white races, they want their convictions thrown out.

Yesterday, lawyers for Gregory and Travis McMichael filed for acquittals claiming prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence for the conviction and the crime, quote, didn't happen on public streets. Really? Legal analyst Candace Kelly joins us right now. Candace, glad to have you on the show. So explain this. What the hell is this? You know what? That's what everybody's asking. What exactly is this? You know, this is an argument that the defense attorneys are making just for father and son, not William Roddy Bryan,

just for Gregory and Travis McMichael, saying that on these streets, they're saying that these streets were not actually federally or state-run streets. In this 43-page document to appeal this conviction, what they said was that back in 1958, Santilla Shores, the developer, he declared that this was not a public place where people should live. But even the document itself says that the county comes in and fix the drainage, that the county and the state comes in and answers questions about mosquitoes and takes care of mosquito problems. So, I mean, there have been situations where the county has been involved with Centilla Shores and fixing the streets. So it's really just a game of semantics. What

they're saying is that if this is a public street, it has nothing to do with the feds, and that the civil rights violation should not stick because this was not any protected place where anybody should have been allowed to run and protected by the federal government because it was a private street. You know, this is actually an argument that they brought up during the court case. It didn't stick. I don't think it's going to stick now. The jurors, they saw through this, and this is why, Roland, these three men were convicted. So were there signs posted saying, hey, you cannot drive down this street because it's private?

I mean, there are private streets. But if they're making this case, what they're trying to say, he was trespassing on a private street? Exactly. They're saying that this was a private street. But there were no signs. There was nothing indicating in this neighborhood that this was private private street, but there were no signs.

There was nothing indicating in this neighborhood that this was private. And in fact, as I said, when there were problems, they would call the county. They would call the state. In essence, they would call the government. And it's the government who brought these charges, which is why none of it makes sense. All the things that you're indicating in terms of someone who lives in a property or in a neighborhood that is private, it is designated as so. It would have a gate. It would have a sign. You know, the people would, in effect, know that this is what it was. It seems after all this was said and done, even the attorneys and the McMichaels didn't know that this was actually private property as they are claiming because it is not. You might have one thing on paper. You might have the developer saying that I want this to be private. But if you are treating it like it's

public and everybody recognizes it as it's public and the state is treating it as it's public and that it's coming to fix things and answer calls, it is public by default. Quite interesting there. While you're here, I got to ask you this here. We're following the Justice Spillette case out of Chicago, and literally the sentencing hearing is still going on. I saw some of it earlier, and it was something that his lawyer said that I found to be quite interesting. They said that the case had been adjudicated, that charters had been dropped. They had agreed to community service restitution. And then after this special prosecutor comes in to examines it, then they file literally the same sort of charters.

They argued double jeopardy. And the judge rejected it, but they went through this whole deal and said, wait a minute, the case has been adjudicated. Why are we back here? Do you think if he gets, first of all, he's been convicted, they're going through sentencing, but the arguments they laid out, does he have a good appeal? Oh, I think he has an amazing appeal. I don't see why we are here. Now, I'm not saying that the evidence that he brought to court held up and that I believe Jesse Smollett, but let's talk about Cosby, right? That was a procedural process and that's why he got off. There was a mistake that was made. I think here too, there was an

agreement. Everybody agreed that, as you said, he would do community service. It was adjudicated. Everything was signed, sealed, and delivered. I mean, he's got all types of support from Rainbow Push and actors and people who are supporting him because of this fact that this was a done deal. Why was this opened up? Because it was Jussie Smollett. That's why it was opened up, because they wanted to make him an example for everybody else. And remember, too, at the time when Jussie Smollett really took off, R. Kelly was also in Chicago, too, and the police, they were being embarrassed by him because he kept on getting off, getting off, getting off until he finally was brought to justice. So at that time, they were really trying to figure out how to save face and make sure that people recognize them as somebody that, you know, could, you know, serve and protect. Because it seemed as though they couldn't serve and protect, so they made

an example of Jesse Smollett. They opened this case again. This is an amazing case for an appeal. I myself don't even see why we are here. This was actually the quote here. His attorney said that the charges were dropped.

There was an immunity type agreement in which charges were dropped. There was an immunity type agreement in which charges were dismissed in exchange for 15 hours of community service and a $10,000 payment. And, quote, he was promised not to be called back into court, but that was exactly what happened. And not only do they want him to be sentenced to jail time, prosecutors now want him to repay $130,000. That's right. They want that to stick because they say that the police officers wasted their time on something that was really a hoax. But you said something that is very important. There was an agreement. It is in writing. And this is what people have to understand about the law. When you have an agreement that is in writing, that has to be honored. That is why Cosby walked out of jail after three years off of a 10-year sentence. They had to honor the agreement. Here, I am not sure

what's going on behind closed doors, but they are not honoring the agreement. And when you have an agreement in court, when attorneys work together to get that agreement on paper, this is something you have to honor to make sure that people actually receive justice. Who can you believe? You say that I'm agreeing to do something and you're promising missing return. Why are you lying to me? And that's what's going on here. They have, in effect, lied to Justice Smollett. You can't have that in the justice system. It won't work. And Candace, to your point, what a lot of people didn't realize, even in the Cosby case, the prosecutor struck the deal and said,

I will only strike this deal if you testify in the deposition. The only reason we are aware what Cosby admitted to giving drugs or quaaludes to women is because of the deposition.

If there's no deposition, you don't have the testimony. That was what he said. I will only strike this deal. You are required to testify. What happened? Cosby testified for three days in the deposition. Then they actually struck an agreement, and then it was sealed. And so when it got overturned, that's where the Supreme Court wouldn't look at it.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said you have to the next D.A. can't just undo the other deal because he testified, gave a deposition because of the agreement. Exactly. You know, in Illinois, there's a new law that was recently passed that says even when you bring a juvenile into, you know, for questioning, that you can't lie to that juvenile in order to get information. The bottom line is that you just should not lie when you are trying to carry out justice. You have to stick to the truth. That's what the court system is made based upon. Evidence, hopefully evidence that is true and that the jury's trying to determine is true. You can't have prosecutors and DA lie along the way and then, you know, and change their mind for something that they promised.

It just doesn't work. So this is why I think that Jussie Smollett certainly has a good case. Candace Kelly, we always appreciate you being on the show. Thanks a lot. All right. Good to see you, Ron. Go back to my panel here. Greg, I'll start with you.

You, of course, teach classes there, Howard University Law School. You finished from Ohio State's law school. This was interesting here. Go to my computer, please. Again, I'm laying out here. State's Attorney Kim Foxx, her office dropped the charges. They dropped the charges, agreed to community service. He had to pay $10,000.

But then people were so pissed off with that, a judge appointed a former U.S. attorney, the U.S. Assistant Attorney Dan Webb as a special prosecutor, and they later re-indicted Smollett, which led to his conviction. Now, here's what's interesting. Webb's report on the state attorney's office decision making in the case was unsealed after Smollett's trial and said his team determined that Fox had committed, quote, substantial abuses of discretion, but found no evidence of criminal conduct

or influence peddling. Kim Fox is duly elected by the people of Cook County to adjudicate cases. And so what you have is these folks in Chicago were so pissed off at him. You had Rahm Emanuel blasting him out there. You had the superintendent, the police chief, blasted him. The same superintendent who was found asleep behind his wheel passed out. And they had to basically drive him to his house he later resigned uh and they still ain't told us really what happened there um so and again so this is not

let me be real clear this is not oh my goodness you caping for justice on that this is the thing that i think people have to understand the supreme court it says equal justice under law on the supreme court okay the law is the law Folks were pissed off that Bill Cosby was released, but as Candace said, that was a technicality, but it was still the law. If the law is supposed to apply to people evenly,

the law is the law. In this case, these folks in Chicago were pissed off, and they said, no, no, no. We're going to put your ass in jail. We're going to make an example out of you. That's really what happened here. Yeah, Roland, and you're right. Of course, Kim Fox is an officer of the court. And did Smollett rely to his detriment on the word of officer of the court? Perhaps that's the case. And really something you just said is really important for us to focus in on among everything else that you've been discussing with Sister Candace.

The question of technicalities, you can't – if you're talking about law, the law is politics, of course. That's the larger field it operates in. But technicalities, that is the essence of law when you start talking about fighting for your clients. And with all due respect, I mean, what you said, it cuts both ways. In Chicago, because of that reliance, perhaps, and because of the fact that politically, while Kim Fox may be a sacrificial lamb, it doesn't escape the fact that they're all part of the government. It might cut toward Jussie Smollett. But in Georgia, and this is where I'm a little, you know, I wanted to ask this to Candace, you know, that's not a small thing. When you start talking about state action, you start talking about private property,

this goes back to enslavement with the Dred Scott decision when Roger Taney basically created two types of citizenship, citizenship in the United States and citizenship in the state that you're in. When you start talking about, when you look at the filing, when you look at the, and I'm looking at it now, the filing that the United States District Court, in the district court that the feds put up for the federal case, in the kidnapping charge, they say that these two guys used their truck as an instrument of interstate commerce. See, interstate commerce is the hinge that all of the civil rights cases fall on that allow the federal government entry, because there was created this fiction that a state

somehow is different than the United States when it comes to prosecuting civil rights cases. I'm not saying these two guys are going to have their sentences reversed, but I'm saying it's bigger than a technicality. When you start talking about private action, which is the way they've been hiding from punishing people for violating, for being racist since Reconstruction, and the federal government. I don't know that—I think the technicality's cut both ways, Roland, and I think it was very important that you put that term into our conversation tonight. It might be one way in Illinois. It could be another way in Georgia. But he and here's what I need people. So to remember something, Recy, when Wanda Arbery

blasted, went off on Kristen Clark and the federal prosecutors for striking that plea deal. First of all, the plea deal was her attorneys were apprised of it the entire time. They told me that. So her attorneys were aware of that. Here's the thing that people, and there were black folks who were just dragging Kristen Clark

because people wanted to hear guilty. Here's what they all missed. First of all, they admitted guilt. Two, it would have been found guilty. But here was the third piece. The third piece was they could not appeal their plea. So in this case, they are appealing their plea. Not saying it'd be successful. It could very well fail.

But the point is, what they did, part of the plea agreement was, you are going to serve 30 years after your state. People are like, well, no, they should go to this. Because part of the deal with the, Wanda Arbery, she wanted them to go to state prison first because that was considered to be more heinous than federal. But the difference was they could not appeal the sentence. That is important, an important distinction. Absolutely. And, you know, as Dr. Carr says, it cuts both ways.

Do you want the moral victory of saying they were convicted or do you want the moral victory of having their asses locked away for 30 years, no matter what, with no benefit of appeal, because they're even appealing their state charges? So that was her judgment call to make. Parents or families of the victims are empowered to reject or to want to fight against the plea deal, and that's what she did. But, you know, then this kind of prolongs the situation, and it does, I think, add anxiety to the fact that, you know, the technicalities, which is no small thing, as Dr. Carr pointed out, could reverse what appears to be accountability, at least for the moment. But on the other hand, technicality and politics go hand in hand. And so in the same way that the politics didn't serve the technicalities for Jesse Smollett, the politics may not serve technicalities for the McMichaels murderers.

So we'll have to see how that plays out. But I think the bottom line that just strikes me, and I'm assuming we'll hear the verdict at some point this evening. It's already been four or five hours this has been going on for what should really be a misdemeanor. You know, the thing that's just most striking to me as a former Chicago resident talking about Kim Foxx, Kim Foxx came to be the state's attorney because of the Laquan McDonald cover-up with Jason Van Dyke. That's where the priorities of the Cook County voters are with, stopping police brutality, stopping cops from getting out of a vehicle and shooting a Black person 17 damn times. That's where the priorities are, not with Jesse Smollett and whatever happened in this situation, whether you believe he made it up or not, whatever the situation may be.

I don't think that that's where the priorities were. I was a Chicago resident at the time. And if I were still a Chicago resident, I would say move the hell on. We done been through a whole ass pandemic. We got a whole new president. There's a whole nother ass war going on overseas. And today in the city of Chicago, for four hours and counting now, they have been talking about this old-ass, washed-up case that had already been adjudicated. It's ridiculous. Larry, it's a low-level felony. That's what it is. It's a low-level

felony. And Kim Fox's office, before they said, this is why we plea bargain these things all the time. They said, these don't go to trial. That's right. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of where I'm going to saw money, power, respect, right? You know, I mean, if he wasn't a celebrity with power,

we wouldn't be having this conversation. We wouldn't even know anything about this case, right? And, you know, obviously he agreed to it with, you know, the community service hours and to pay the fine. Like I said, we shouldn't be having this discussion. But, you know, Dr. Carr talked about, you know, being elected officials, but also talked about politics, right? And it's something that I don't know really well. But, you know, in terms of how when political figures or other people with a perceived power get involved in incidents that should have been resolved,

obviously this was resolved months ago and was resolved, this once again bubbles back up, and here we are having this conversation again. You talked about Ken Fox being elected and coming and making a decision, you know, an agreement with the parties. And then here we are, you know, several months later dealing with this issue. And this is more like, you know, Roland, I know you talked the last couple of weeks in terms of Hollywood, you know, these shows you talk about, Inside Edition, et cetera. We talk about TV shows that talk about these Hollywood stories, right? They glamorize it.

So this is more something that needs to be some kind of entertainment program. And once this, you know, I'm quite sure he'll appeal after the decision, but we really need to move on. Like I said, they're more important. You know, Recy talked about that, you know, black people catching hell. There are a lot more important issues to deal with. But the fact that this issue is still lingering on, and I'm quite sure the residents of Illinois and Cook County are ready to move on. But once again, this is like it sounds like it's a great opportunity and appeal. But I'm like I said, you know, I'm certainly ready to move on when it comes to this issue, but also speaks to ideas of justice in America, in Georgia and then Illinois.

In Georgia, initially those individuals were responsible for murder, in Georgia and then in Illinois. In Georgia, initially, those individuals who were responsible for murder weren't even arrested, right? And here we are, here we are months later, dealing with the same issue in Illinois of a low-level crime that was committed. And like I said, this idea of justice and a sense of duality we have in America. Indeed. All right, folks, got to go to a break. When we come back, I'm Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Vice President Kamala Harris is in Poland. We'll show you whatU funding as well as efforts to change a law in Connecticut that notifies family members when one of their loved ones has passed away.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Don't forget to download the Black Star Network app. We want to get to 50,000 downloads. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV. We want to get to 50,000 downloads. We want to get to 50,000 downloads. We want to get to 50,000 downloads.'t forget to download the Black Star Network app.

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That's $4.19 a month, 13 cents a day. And I had somebody on my Instagram account who said that I had a wrong business model. I told the dear brother, I said, well, because he said you should be going to a subscription model. I said, brother brother, I said, well, because he said, you should be going to a subscription model. I said, brother, not everybody can pay a monthly subscription. So the reason I purposely did this is because there are people who have supported us. I'm looking at right now, people who have, I'm looking on here. And so you take, for instance,

April Wright gave us 50 bucks on Zelle. Gail Newcomb, 50 bucks on Zelle. Tracee Ann Miller, 50 bucks on Zelle. But Tonya Murphy gave us $5. Here's the deal. Benjamin Walker gave 50. Warren Smith gave 150. Anthony Hegler gave 5. Andre Morgan gave 10.

Frank Steed gave 25. Joanne Turner gave 100. Denise Miller gave 25. Karen Monique gave 5. Sally Cameron gave 10. Sonia Michelle gave 10. Lakita gave 50. Pamela Johnson gave 25. Karen Monique gave 5. Sally Cameron gave 10. Sonia Michelle gave 10. Lakita gave 50. Pamela Johnson gave 50.

Rudolph Blake Banks gave 50. Cirilla Apollo gave 10. The reason we do that, folks, because some of our people can't give 50 or 100 or $200. If I charge people $5 a month for a subscription, that's $60 a year. What if that person says, man, I want to support you. All I got is $5. Let me put $ five on it. That's why we do this. And that's why I purposely chose not to go to a subscription model. So don't think for a second, I'm not aware of the model. I purposely did it because there's some of our people, all they got is a dollar,

but they said my dollar matters. And so Cash App, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RM Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. You can also send a check of money order to, and I tell you how I love my people. Literally, I think out of all the checks people have sent us, maybe two or three didn't go through. But folks are real with this thing.

So PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037. PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037. And just in case y'all think I'm not joking, literally on my kitchen table right now, I got a stack about that thick of money orders and checks. So it's a whole bunch of folks still old school. But last I checked, old school still count the same as new school.

We'll be right back. Look at y'all with the shot. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА I'm sorry. A larger roller board. They put tin in here? Tin. And you don't come out till you die. And you eat him, poop him. Oh my god. СПОКОЙНАЯ МУЗЫКА When did the damn Woo Woo song just become like stupid crazy? I came home and I'm playing it around the house, you know, and my daughter was three.

Tiffany was three years old at the time. So I'll tell you how long ago. Yeah. And she kept walking by singing the woo-woo. And she said, man, I love that woo-woo song. And I'm like, you can barely talk. That's not the woo-woo song. It's called You Should Be Mine.

No, it's the woo-woo song. I called the songwriter and I said, my daughter said, this is the woo-woo song. And they said, well, maybe she's right. So they kind of named it the, you should be mine, but in parentheses, called the woo-woo song, right? Wow. So the record company went out in the street

with microphones in the city and had people sing woo-woo-woo. And people were going crazy over just singing, can you woo-woo-woo-woo? And that song just blew up. And from then, now people are calling me the woo-woo man. Right. I'm like the woo-woo man, exactly. MUSIC My name is Charlie Wilson.

Hi, I'm Sally Richardson Whitfield. And I'm Dodger Whitfield. Hey, everybody, this your man Fred Hammond. My name is Charlie Wilson. Hi, I'm Sally Richardson-Whitfield. And I'm Dodger Whitfield. Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, My Man Unfiltered. Wednesday, we told you about Connecticut's Judiciary Committee hearing for HB 5349, the deaths of two black women, sparked the bill. Of course, we're talking about Lauren Smith-Fields

and Brenda Lee Rawls. They died on December 12, 2021. Neither family was notified by any Bridgeport official of their loved ones passing away. The bill will require police to notify the family within 24 hours of the discovery of death or document the reasons why the family or next

of kin hasn't been notified in that time frame. Joining me now from Bridgeport is State Senator Marilyn Moore, a co-sponsor of the bill as well as the family attorney for Lawrence Smith Fields, Darnell Crossland. Glad to have both of you on the show.

Senator Moore, first and foremost, I mean, it was crazy when we first got the details of Lauren's death and then Brenda's death, and no one told the family? I mean, that's just outrageous. Not only is it outrageous, it's shoddy police work, incompetence, and insensitive. And what I'm still—it still amazes me that the officers in Bridgeport act as if, okay, fine, no big deal. I mean, days gone by, people worrying about their loved one. Well, you know, you need to know the history of Bridgeport, that so much of this is commonplace here.

Disregards for black lives, brown lives, the police, disregards for following the law. This law that they put in place in House Bill 5349, you know, it's common sense that when someone dies, you would notify the family. You know, it doesn't take a degree. It doesn't take any special education. It just takes common sense and a love of the people and concern for people. What the bill does is it added some clause to it and put a penalty that if they don't do it, they could lose the certification. So we have a police chief who who's just left to go got out of jail for cheating on a test We now have a police chief that's been assigned that's not qualified and low morale in the police department So it's a bigger problem, but when you bring it down to the cinema or a whole tight one second

I need to go live to Chicago for the same thing. I'll just do some let let's go loud to the courtroom Any sentencing judge could do to you that can compare to the damage you've already caused yourself. So who is Jussie Smollett? Who are you? And how out of all people in the world did you get to be here, sitting in the courtroom of Chicago at a sentencing hearing convicted of faking, hoaxing,

racial and homophobic hate crimes. How in the world did this happen? Well, there are ironies in this case, and the ironies are many, and they are profound. And I'm talking about the testimony I heard under oath from Mr. Smollett, corroborated in large part by the pre-cents investigation. Mr. Smollett chose to take the witness stand, which of course is his right. He took an oath and he got on the witness stand, and the first thing he did was to introduce himself to the jury. He wanted the jury to know who he was, where he came from, what he was about. And I heard it on the witness stand, and I heard

it corroborated today by the witnesses that came and testified on his behalf. There's no question. Mr. Smollett was born into a mixed-race family. His mom is an African-American woman. His dad was a white Jewish man. There were six siblings. And if you can say anything about this family, and we're talking about a very, very tight-knit family, a village that was always in sync with each other, that cared about each other,

was completely wholly supportive with each other, that cared about each other, was completely wholly supportive of each other, you know that this family knew about matters about social justice more than anything else. That's what the family stood for. It is part of the fabric of their existence. I know that Jussie Smollett grew up knowing to be sensitive to matters about racial discrimination, any kind of discrimination, any kind of social injustice. As a matter of fact, I'm learning more about it as we're going on in the letters I've been receiving and the testimony I've heard today.

He's been doing this all his life. He doesn't just talk the talk. He's walking the walk. He's out there. He's advocating. He's involved in the community. He cares deeply about social justice issues. And for you now to sit here, convicted of hoaxing hate crimes, racial hate crimes, and homophobic hate crimes, the hypocrisy is just astounding. Don't know where to begin. I'll remember

one thing that will always stick in my mind, and I've been involved in so many trials over the years, but something happened in this trial that was remarkable, and it talks about your sensitivity to issues of social justice. You're on the witness stand. You're being cross-examined. Your liberty is at stake. It is your criminal trial. Mr. Webb is winding through some things on cross-examination, and he's going through some social media communications, and whether it was Instagram or chat or text, a little quibbling about that, that doesn't matter. But Mr. Webb found a line that he wanted to confront you with, and he said,

Didn't you say, and he used a word starting with the letter N, Meet me at this place at this time and I'm paraphrasing. And rather than just answer the question, which is what a witness is supposed to do and expected to do in their criminal trial, you stopped the proceedings. You said, Mr. Webb, out of respect for all the African American people in this courtroom, you should not be using that word. And I was amazed. But it showed, and I'm not talking about the parrying and the gamesmanship that may go on between the prosecutor and the witness on the stand. That's not why I'm telling this, recalling this event. If the wrong words come out of somebody else's mouth, you're going to get up and speak up and complain about it.

And make sure that they know that they're not behaving the way you're supposed to behave. So you know better than anybody else that these are serious matters. They're serious to you. They're clearly serious to you and as your whole family. And for you to be here now, convicted of these hate crimes, it's just astonishing. Faking hate crimes. So why did this happen? That's a good question. I think that's the question on everybody's mind. There's some conjecture you did it for the money.

Frankly, I do not believe that you did it for the money. You were making, the evidence showed, close to $2 million a year when this happened. I don't think money motivated you at all. But the only thing I can find is that you really craved the attention, and you wanted to get the attention, and you were so invested in issues of social justice, and you knew that this was a sore spot for everybody in this country. You knew this was a country that was slowly trying to heal past injustices and current injustices and trying to make a better future for each other.

And it was a hard road. And you took some scabs off some healing wounds and you ripped them apart for one reason. You wanted to make yourself more famous. And for a while it worked. Everybody was talking about you. The lights were on you. You were actually throwing a national pity party for yourself. Why would you do such a thing? Why would you, I understand, you crave the attention so much, but why would you betray something like social justice issues, which you care so much about?

The only thing I could conclude is that, and I acknowledge, there are wonderful sides to you. There are very giving and charitable and loving sides to you. But you have another side of you that is profoundly arrogant and selfish and narcissistic. That's the only thing that can be concluded. And that bad side of you came out during the course of all these events. Let me talk about hate crimes for a minute. I've been a criminal judge for many years.

And I've heard many victims of crimes testify in front of me. And any victim of a crime, no matter what the crime is, they are demoralized by what happens to them. It doesn't matter if you're injured unjustifiably, if somebody hurts you and maybe cripples you or damages you in some fashion that's going to be longstanding injuries. if your property is stolen your vehicles are stolen people go into your homes your possessions are are stolen people do all kinds of terrible things it is a demoralizing experience and sometimes it's the worst experience that anybody can can ever go through in their entire life. And then if it turns out that the motivation for the criminal to do something bad to you was because they hate you, they hate you because of your race,

because of your ethnicity, because of your gender, your sexual orientation, your religion, your age, your disability. If that was the reason for it, it is exponentially worse. There is nothing worse than to be a victim of a hate crime. It is the worst thing that can happen, especially in our country with all our history and all that we're going through now to try to get around some of these issues. Hate crimes are the absolute worst. And I believe that you did damage to real hate crimes, to hate crime victims.

There are people that are actual, genuine victims of hate crimes that you did damage to. These are people that have a difficult time coming forward. They may be mistrustful. They may not want to bring it to the attention of the community or first responders. There may be some trepidation. I don't know for sure how much damage there was. I don't know how this is going to impact other people, if they're going to be hesitant to come forward because they're going to think that they're going to be accused of acting like you and doing a stunt like you pulled here. I don't know if first responders are going to be more doubtful and skeptical of people that come forward, real

victims of hate crime, because of what you did here. I'm hoping it's not that way. Now I'll show one of the ironies in this case, and I find this pretty profound. I got letters from people that advocate about victims of hate crime their entire lives. They devote their lives to this. I'm talking in particular Derek Johnson, president of the NAACP. Reverend Jesse Jackson, an icon here in Chicago, no introductions necessary. They devote their whole lives to addressing issues about social injustice and hate crimes. And they are here today asking me to show you mercy.

And I take that seriously. I find it profound. I take it seriously. And I know that they're in a better position than myself to educate the public about that topic, about the damage you've done to real victims of hate crime. And I am confident that because of all the attention that you've garnered here on this case, that they are going to seize the opportunity and they will educate the public. And they'll be talking about this. And they'll try to mitigate some of the damage that you've caused to real victims of hate crimes and they're better positioned to do it than

I am and I will defer but I will acknowledge that you have done some real damage. I want to talk about your premeditation. Again, I've been a criminal judge for many years. And I know that people end up where you are right now, awaiting sentencing on their criminal trial. And how did they get to court? How did that happen? There are some people that wake up in the morning. They have no intention of doing anything wrong. They're not looking to do anything criminal.

It's the last thing on their mind. But there are crimes of impulse that happen. Road rage, a barroom fight, bumping into somebody, words are exchanged that somebody finds insulting, and sometimes weapons are available, and the results can be horrific, and they can be permanent. And people are sitting here and they're they're wondering themselves how did I get here I wasn't looking for trouble but trouble just seemed to

find them and crimes and bimples and when I'm saying that I have to put the person and the crime together and try to mix them and understand who it is that committed this crime within the sentencing range and that's part of my job to do I consider how the person got here so but this is not a crime of impulse there are also crimes of opportunity walking down the street and somebody oh somebody they left the keys in the car with the motor running they take the car or they're in the department store and they see someone put the credit card on this side and they go to adjust their baggage on the other side and grab the credit card those are side, and they go to adjust their baggage on the other side,

and grab the credit card. Those are crimes of opportunity. They didn't wake up thinking they're going to commit a crime, but something just looked too tempting to them. They used very bad judgment, and then they get in trouble, they get caught, and here they are. But then there are crimes of premeditation. Mr. Smollett, that's what you are all about here, crime of premeditation. You did wake up in the morning thinking you were going to do something bad and something wrong and I know and I know more today about this than I ever did before that there are some wonderful things about you and I know how people they cherish you and they cherish your relationships and they cherish the good works that you've done and they love you sincerely and deeply

and they're not faking they're not lying when they talk to me about their feelings about you and the good things that you've done but you had that dark side and this is what happened here you premeditated this case to an extreme that is that's amazing you wrote a script script involved words you're gonna encounter me on the street yell out Empire n-word f F word. You're going to hit me. You're going to beat me up. You're going to put bleach on me. You're going to put a noose around my neck. It's a script that you wrote. Now it's not a good script, especially for Street orville in Chicago. It's questionable, but it's a script that you wrote.

You picked out the actors. You chose the Ocean Darrow brothers. Why did you do that? Because you knew them. You trusted them. They idolized you. You're an established actor in a serious television production of Empire. They were kind of hangers on there. They're trying to get jobs as extras,

maybe a little speaking part here and there, but you were mentoring them. You were helping them. They wanted your advice. They would do anything for you. They thought you were one of the greatest people in the world to know and that you could help them in their careers. They're in great shape. They gave you a little advice about diet and exercise, but they idolized you and they would have done anything for you. And you chose them because you knew that you could trust them that they were loyal to you you paid in advance by check not necessarily a good idea but it was your idea it was part of the plan that you would pay them in advance and the check was out there the check was shown into evidence, that was part of your premeditation. You chose a date, you chose a time, you chose a location, you had props procured, you gave them a $100 bill and had them get the supplies. What are the supplies in this case? Get masks. Nobody should see you. We're going to say that you're white, but obviously the Ocean Darrow brothers are not white.

We're going to cover your faces in masks. We're going to have a red hat because that's going to indicate MAGA country. We're going to get a rope that we're going to use as a noose. We're going to procure some bleach. You're going to have the supplies. And you had all that together, and then you did rehearsals. You picked them up, and you did drive-bys. You drove around and around the block.

You picked them up in Lakeview in their neighborhood and some distance away. You went to Streeterville where you were living and you showed him. You're going here, you're going there, and you're going over the lines. You're going over the script with them so they would memorize the script. You're indicating which brother. You're the one that's going to hit me. You're the one that's going to put the noose around my neck and pour the bleach on me. This was planned.

This was premeditated. It's premeditated to the extreme. And I find that your extreme premeditation in this case is an aggravating factor today. Let's talk about the incident itself. It's all set up. Alcindor brothers are on board. Your plane is running late. Now you had a chance right then and there to think okay i'm really late i'm four hours late this can't go down it's freezing in chicago we're on the verge of a polar vortex you might have just thought about it and said you know maybe it's not in the cards maybe maybe the karma is wrong i shouldn't be doing this but no no no you double down you start communicating with the brothers

through social media now whether it was by texts or chats or instagram public or private one way or another you kept in touch with them and there was some quibbling about the specifics about how you kept in touch with them but they knew what time you're coming in and now the time is pushed back to two o'clock in the morning in the freezing cold weather it's double digits below zero at 2 o'clock in the morning. You have to have a reason to be out on the street. And the reason you chose is you come up with the story that you needed to get some eggs at Walgreens at 2 o'clock in the morning. If not that, you're going to go to Subway and get a sandwich and a salad and get something to eat at 2 o'clock in the morning in the freezing cold.

You did one more thing. You got the Ocean Darrell brothers. Now they're on board with you. You're using them as your patsies. You have your friend, you get your friend Brandon on the phone and here's a man, professional man, that's trying to help you in your career you're not sure what what town he's in what if he's in Australia or not but you get him on the phone and he's gonna be your patsy also because he's going to listen and be around on the phone to hear that you're being attacked by somebody now he

doesn't know what's going on that's really not an attack but he's going to be able to corroborate your story so you're getting that together you. You've got Brandon on the phone, you're out on the street ostensibly to get some subway, you get some subway, and you're walking to where this is supposed to take place. Now the Oshendero brothers, they're getting ready too. And they're doing this because he wanted them to do it on the sneak. No cell phones involved. Make sure nobody sees you get there. And what they think is some kind of clever way of getting there,

they have an Uber pick them up from their home in Lakeview. They take the Uber to Old Town. It's a different neighborhood. They get out of the Uber and they get into a cab. Now the cab is supposed to go to Streeterville, but not to the scene where this is supposed to happen a few blocks away. So nobody actually sees them get off, get out of the cab and this works out the way you want it to work out. So they get there a little early, they're walking around, they're sitting on a bench

for a minute, but at 2 o'clock, the time that you said this is supposed to happen, at the place you said it was supposed to happen, at the moment you said it was supposed to happen, they appear so you're talking to brandon on the phone you have your subway in hand and they follow the script hey empire word with the letter n word with letter f there's a scuffle they pour bleach on you brandon's listening to this they attempt to put a noose around your neck during the scuffling. You're getting a little abrasion and scrape on your face. A car goes by and the brothers take off. They leave. They never did get the noose around your neck. So what do you do? You gather your belongings. You get the cell phone. You're talking to Brandon. Hey, did you get jumped? Yeah, I got jumped. I got

mugged. Did you hear what happened? You're trying to make sure hey, did you get jumped? Yeah, I got jumped, I got mugged. Did you hear what happened? You're trying to make sure that he heard the words that were spoken. You grab your food, and you took the noose that they never did get around your neck, and you put it around your own neck. I repeat, you put the noose around your own neck. You go home. Video footage shows that when you walk into your residence, you have this noose dangling loosely around your neck.

You go into your apartment. The police are called. The police arrive. The first officer on the scene is Chicago Police Officer Muhammad Baig, in full uniform, the first responder of the first responders. His body cam is on. He sees you, and now he sees that that noose is around your neck, but it's not the way that you walked into the house. Now the noose is up at your throat. You've maneuvered the noose, and you've made it look worse than it was. This is part of your plan. Officer Ba Bay gets a simple question, what happened?

And then you start to lie. And you haven't stopped lying ever since. You've been lying and lying and lying about this case, and that's why you're here today. You want to fake an incident down the street, try to get some attention at work, try to have somebody else feel sorry for you, that would never have got you here. The problem was you lied to the police and you caused all kinds of consternation. You caused a major investigation to take place which got many people involved and caused great stress throughout the city and throughout the entire community here and that's the problem. That's why you're here now. Those were the crimes you're convicted of, not the shenanigans out there, but the lying about it, making it up, and that's why we're here now.

You repeated your lies at the hospital. Six counts were put together. The jury found you guilty of five of them. One was a little bit different than the others, and I understand that. Let me say, from my vantage point, and I was obviously here at every stage of this trial, I thought the jury's verdict was accurate, correct, wholly corroborated, but could only be described as overwhelming evidence of guilt against you for lying. That's the crime you're here for, lying to the police. Well, Officer Bay took this very seriously. He said, that's a horrible thing that happened.

And he started the process of police investigation, detectives got involved, you ended up at the hospital. All things were starting to happen and this word got out. And you're not just any person, you have a little bit of celebrity about you. You were known in some circles as a very competent actor, a really good actor in a very serious television production called Empire, and people knew about this. And because you're a celebrity, and because you've been so active in all these social justice causes, and this is what is so unbelievable about this case, that you of all people are here convicted of hoaxing hate crimes. You who know better, who are out there in the world trying to be something for the good in social justice causes, that you ended up here right now like this.

It's crazy. But you know people in high places, elected public officials. They reacted. You knew mainstream journalists. They reacted. You became the first page. You're front page else. People on mainstream media are decrying what happened. What kind of country is this? How could they do this to Jussie? We know Jussie. He's such a gentle guy. He's the guy that was described to me by all the family and friends that I heard from today. And I believe that Jussie exists. But you use them as your patsies too. They were giving you the national pity party you wanted. They're putting you on the front page. All the attention is on you.

People talk about social injustice. Your name was coming up first, which is exactly what you wanted. But you used them. If anything, people in those positions, elected public officials, mainstream journalists, their credibility is everything to them. And you didn't care that you might be damaging it you did damage to them because again there's a side of you that has this arrogance and selfishness and narcissism that's just disgraceful you plan worked of course until it didn't we're in Chicago you lived here for five years working on the on the Empire show and have to know, as well as anybody that lives in Chicago, that Chicagoans, they love their city.

They are fiercely loyal to the city, and believe me, Chicagoans know we don't all agree with each other on a lot. There are all kinds of disagreements on what our city should be, what the vision should be for the future. There's even disagreements about what our past was like. But despite all the disagreements and all the things that are not right with Chicago, it's sweet home to Chicago, to the Chicagoans. Chicagoans are fiercely loyal to their city. But Chicagoans have one thing in common with what they agree on, that there's no misunderstandings. Everybody's

on the same page. And that page is crime is a problem. It is a major problem. Nobody disagrees. And we know that police resources, they are valuable. They're arrogantly, and narcissistically bringing attention to yourself, it's the only reason you could have been doing such a crazy thing that you did, was you took away a lot of resources from other places, from other real victims of real crimes. You used up the police resources for your own benefit, and that's a big problem here. What you did is you created what we call around here a heater and that's a big problem here what you did is you created what we call around here a heater what's a heater a heater is a case that when it's reported to the public the public conscience is shocked shocked to such an extreme that the public is demanding that the police

solve this crime here right now right here right now everything else has to take second place the heater has to be addressed. And you created a heater. And boy, did they put on an investigation. It's certainly not a perfect police department. It's perhaps unfairly maligned in some respects as well. I'll match the homicide detectives here against any in the country for their competence and thoroughness. Not a question about that. But what they did in this case is extraordinary. I have never seen, even in some murder cases, the amount of police work that went into this investigation. You did exactly what you didn't want to happen. They put so many police resources into this.

When I say what you didn't want to happen is you never wanted this case solved. You thought that somehow you'd be able to skate by and nobody would ever know what really happened here, and you're going to walk away from this, and it didn't go down like that at all, of course. So they solved the case. And what happened? It turns out that you're not a victim of a hate crime. You're not a victim of a racial hate crime. You're not a victim of a homophobic hate crime.

You're just a charlatan pretending to be a victim of a hate crime. And that's shameful, especially from the family you got brought up with, with your family values. It's so sad. The damage you've done to yourself is way beyond anything else that can happen to you, from me or any other judge that would be sentencing you in this criminal case.

You are now a permanently convicted felon. Your family who loves you and supports you. I only want to use the word forgive because forgiveness isn't even necessary. They're with you so much. They're so tight-knit, but you have to live with the fact that you really put them through a ringer. You've embarrassed your valuable friends in high places, the elected public officials, people in the media. You've embarrassed your valuable friends in high places, elected public officials, people in the media. You've embarrassed them. You have to live with that. I don't know if those relationships can be repaired.

You've become toxic in your own workplace. Your career future is uncertain at very best. It was really on a rocket ship to success, and now you've turned yourself into riches to rags. And it's so unfortunate. Your very name has become an adverb for lying. You've been a rocket ship to success and now you've turned yourself into riches to rags. And it's so unfortunate. Your very name has become an adverb for lying. And I cannot imagine what could be worse than that. People talk about situations where somebody's lying and trying to manipulate and maneuver a story.

And your name comes up. Oh, pulling a Jussie, something like that. That's awful. You're the butt of jokes. Comedians, mainstream talk show hosts, they make jokes about you. They do sketches about you. I can't imagine anything worse than that. Now, this is all self-inflicted. These are things you did to yourself. This is self-damage. Well, some people may think that what you did is funny, and that there's some room for humor or jokes about it. But I assure you, this court does not.

I don't think there is anything funny at all about hoaxing and faking racial hate crimes. Hoaxing or faking homophobic hate crimes. I think that is disgraceful there is nothing funny about it there's no humor in what you did whatsoever all because you're selfish arrogant narcissistic at least you have that side in you that came out through this case and you kept doubling down and doubling down and doubling down it's not funny it's not funny at all and I'm your sentencing judge and I don't find it funny so that where we at we're at the end you're convicted of a class

four felony it's presumptively probationable but we have some real serious aggravating factors here your premeditation which I've described the pain you've caused to real victims of hate crimes, which I've described. The damage you've done to the city of Chicago, I've heard. It's been talked about. I'm mindful of the city's request for restitution. And if I'm going to consider that request, I have to fashion the sentence accordingly. And above all, the capper of all cappers, your performance on the witness stand.

This could only be described as pure perjury. You got on the witness stand. You didn't have to. You did. You certainly have a right to. But you committed hour upon hour upon hour of pure perjury. And I find all those to be ample factors. If this court were to decide that the things you did, that any kind of probationary sentence would deprecate the seriousness of the offense and you need to go to the penitentiary, the record is clear and it would support it.

But I'm looking at everything in its totality. And I agree. He's told me today, you can't judge everybody by one bad thing they've done in their life. I don't know if it's the only bad thing, but it's the only bad thing that I'm concerned about now. And that you do have quite a record of real community service and quite a record of attaching with people. There is a lot of mitigation in this case as well. And I'm mindful of the pleas of mercy, particularly from people that are in the arena of dealing with social justice issues that are fighting, seriously fighting, not playing around, not doing games like you are doing, but seriously fighting for matters involving hate crimes of all sorts. And they're asking you for mercy as well.

So I'm trying to consider who you are as a person, how you got here, how somehow you strayed away from your family values, you let that dark, narcissistic, selfish, and arrogant side come out, and you persisted with it for years on this case. I'm fashioning the following sentence. And here's your sentence. I'm sentencing you to 30 months felony probation and the probation is going to be to this court. You're going to be allowed to travel wherever you want.

You do not have to live in the state of Illinois. You can report by phone. I know that if you're going to try to make a living and do some of the things you do, you may have to go to other places, New York and Los Angeles. You can do those things. You will pay restitution to the city of Chicago in the amount of $120,106. You are fined $25,000, which is the maximum fine. And you will spend the first 150 days of your sentence in the Cook County Jail and that will start today right here right now Mr. Smollett

Though the jury found you guilty and I'd sentency as I have you have the right to appeal the findings and rulings the court Or ask your sentence be modified to do those things and you follow the notice of appeal in writing within 30 days We also follow motion to modify your sentence which may notice of appeal in writing within 30 days. You may also file a motion to modify your sentence which may have to be filed in writing within 30 days. Anything not stated in those filings are waived for purposes of appeal. You cannot afford lawyers or transcripts. They would be provided for your charge. Do you have any questions? No, I would just like to say to your honor that I am not suicidal.

That's what I would like to say. Okay. I am not suicidal. That's what I was about to say. Okay. I am not suicidal. Okay. I am not suicidal. I am innocent, and I am not suicidal. If I did this, then it means that I stuck my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years, and the fears of the LGBTQ community.

Your Honor, I respect you, and I respect the jury, but I did not do this, and I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself, and you must all know that. I respect you, Your Honor. I respect your decision. Jail time, I am not suicidal. Okay. Mr. Uche, let me inquire. Are there any post-sentencing motions you care to present right now? Yes, Judge. Yes, Ms. Whittem. The defense would wish to present a motion to reconsider sentence and file it as standard. It is timely filed.

Thank you, Judge. And let me say, I've obviously considered the sentence at great length. And it's timely filed, so it's preserved for purposes of appeal. The motion to reconsider sentence is respectfully denied. And is there another? One second, Randy. Anything else? Just a second, just a second. Is there going to be a notice of appeal filed?

Yes, sir. We filed a notice of appeal. We're going to be emailing it to the court right now, to the office. You're doing it in standard? In standard. Are you going to be handling the appeal? As of now, yes. Well, you have to commit to handling the appeal for the appellate court.

Yes, sir. We're following the notice of appeal. All right. Notice of appeal may be filed. Charlotte, now I need the prosecutors to work with Charlotte, the probation officer, to work out probation specifications with the conditions I just explained. 150 days in the county jail, the restitution, the fines. Oh, and also statutory DNA and costs are ordered as well. That's statutory. So you have to fill out the probation specifications. And I'm going to get somebody to help you do that.

But we need to get that done in standard. Anything else today? Yes. And I'm going to get somebody to help you do that, but we need to get that done in standard. Anything else today? Yes. Mr. Martin, I may, in light of the notice of appeal, we would ask that you suspend the jail sentence in light of the instance of filing the notice of appeal. Did I do what? Suspend the jail sentence in light of the notice of filing the appeal. That will be respectfully denied. Yes, Mark.

Mr. Lewis. If it could be stayed in light of our notice of appeal. No. I'm not staying. No, no, no. The wheels of justice turn slowly, and sometimes the hammer of justice has to fall, and it's falling right here, right now. I'm not staying this. This happens right here, right now.

Okay. Charlotte. I know you said since he had a dispute is how it's been going to be. Yeah, I'll talk to you about it. I'll give you his details. Okay. Okay? All right.

Any other matters to come before the court today? All right. Defendants are manned into the custody of the sheriff. Court is adjourned. I am not suicidal. Stop laughing about black people. I am not suicidal. And I am innocent.

I could have said that I was guilty a long time ago. Who are witnessing right here, what you're witnessing right here, again, is the end of the sentencing today of actor Justice Smollett in a Chicago courtroom. The judge announced that Jesse Smollett would be getting 30 months probation, but he said the first 150 days will be spent in the Cook County Jail. What you heard there was Smollett. What you're seeing right now is Smollett's family.

You see his sister, his brother. You see the woman on the right with the gray hair. That is Jesse's mother. They were all in the courtroom today. Clearly, clearly, this family is shocked and stunned. He clearly is already convicted of a low-level, you heard the judge say, class four felony, a low-level felony. He was already found guilty.

But for him to be going to jail for 150 days, that is what is shocking to a number of people. I know we were talking about the Connecticut case. I do want to bring in Attorney Darnell Crossland. He was here to discuss the Bridgeport case. We are going to go back to that. But, Darnell, as a lawyer, I certainly want to get your perspective. This judge blasted Jussie, lashed out at him.

You listen to what this judge, he said a number of things to him in that long read up there. He said, give me one second, you're a charlatan. You're now a permanently convicted felon. Your very name has become an adverb for lying. You're the butt of jokes. Yeah, I'm shocked. I'm stunned. I was two years in the Bronx prosecutor's office, 17 years in private practice, and listening to this sentence, you know, he clearly stated that there was a lot of mitigators here, and we know that people need to be incarcerated for a danger to a community. And there should be always a balance between punishment, rehabilitation and deterrence. And I just didn't see any need for incarceration here. He's obviously committed to community service.

There are so many people that have spoken on his behalf. And I just think that putting this man in prison just didn't serve us at all. And I'm shocked. I'm almost in tears. Not excusing any behavior, but it just didn't serve the ends of justice to me, that sentence. Greg Carr, I want to go to you. What you had this long, you hit the judge, lay all of these different things out. He talked about a number of different things, called him a sociopath.

He talked about his service and just went on and on and on. And remember, when the case initially happened, the first charters were dismissed by Cook County State's Attorney Kim Fox. She said, these rarely ever go to trial. We always simply plea these things out. He was given a fine of $10,000, again, $15 of community service. You heard it there, 30 months probation, 150 days in Cook County Jail, has to pay restitution of

$120,000, I think $22,000, $25,000 as well. This was Chicago saying, we are going to throw the book at Justice Smollett because of all of the attention. And the judge basically said it, all of the attention that this case received. Yeah, Roland, I mean, I'll be honest with you, brother. You know, I've been texting a bag of four of you, a few lawyers I know, law professors. Man, everybody was sitting here with their mouths open. I mean, what we just saw, and I have paid no attention to this. I think it's a complete spectacle.

But because it's a spectacle, what we just saw, hey, man, everybody should pay attention to what you just saw. You just saw a judge who basically, I guess, was doing his star turn and put everything out on the sink he had. I don't know what his story is. You just saw the sentencing guidelines evoked. But as you just said, Counselor, you gave this guy five months. You saw him scared as hell, clearly. That's Cook County Jail.

Some of y'all in Chicago, I know, recently, know what Cook County Jail means. He talking about, if something happened to me, I am not suicidal. Look, this is serious business. And as far as, finally, I'll just say this right quick. I mean, this guy, James Lynn, you know, the prosecutors, the state's attorneys apparently in Cook County don't like him, because they've taken all of the cases that involve sex crimes away from him. Over the years, in many of those cases, he's given sex offenders lighter sentences. And so now they claim that the sentences are—that the trials are assigned randomly,

but he doesn't get sex crimes cases anymore because apparently the prosecutors in Cook County thinks he's a little too lenient. Defense attorneys tend to ask him for more, for bench trials rather than jury trials because he's known that way. So when we saw him there, I'm wondering if he's trying to repair his relationship with the police. I'm like, what is this guy doing? You know, anyway, I'd be interested to hear what you think, Counselor, because that seemed kind of bizarre to me. I thought it was interesting that he also said that you have now went from riches to rags. I mean, these conclusions are just beyond me. And I think it's outside of a jurist to talk about somebody going from riches to rags. It's almost like he was celebrating this guy's demise, talking about you've embarrassed

the people in high places. I don't think that those, again, you're supposed to have a sentence that balances punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation. If you can't find a strike a balance stand without all these remarks that you're making towards this gentleman, and again, like our guest says, they put him in Cook County jail where his life is in danger. And I'm not sure how that's going to serve the interests of the public. There's people who actually commit hate crimes that get less time than that, that actually get probation, violent crimes. So I'm not sure how that judge ended up in that space. There were a lot of people who were reacting to what this judge was saying

and how he went on and on and on. Recy, I saw your tweets. Certainly you have a couple of thoughts about what we just witnessed in that Chicago courtroom. What we just witnessed was some straight-up bullshit. Let's just be clear. This judge got his OJAC because Because you know white folks been simmering ever since OJAC got off in the 90s

and so any chance they get to smack a black ass motherfucker down that's rich, that's famous, that they can say he's fallen from grace rags to riches, what that got to do with any goddamn thing, I don't know. They're gonna take it. And that's what we saw. The way

that he characterized Jesse, the way that he went in on him, he restated the whole damn case. What have y'all been doing for the past four hours but stating all the shit that he just sat up there and stated? It's bullshit. It's about getting their OJ, you know? And that's not even about innocence or guilt.

It's about the fact that they don't like to see Black folks, what they believe, get away with something. So this was about smacking him down. To sit up there and say it was an aggravating factor that he was... that this was premeditated, all that shit he talked about was baked into these bogus-ass charges, charging him six times for the same damn crime. If you want to believe it's a crime.

That's all this was about. It was about humbling a wealthy, famous black man. He completely set aside and disregarded all of the character witnesses and sentenced him to five months incarceration over what? And I don't believe anything he said

about, oh, you're doing injustice to hate crimes. This shit happened three years ago. Okay? So what has happened? Where is the statistical data that says hate crime reports have gone down? They've gone up.

Where hate crime convictions are harder to obtain? They're not. You want to talk about the cost to the city of Chicago? What about the fact that the city of Chicago for the past decade has put out $500 million of police misconduct, false arrests, improper search and seizure, police brutality, et cetera, fucking et cetera.

And you talking about this $130,000, if you fired one of the cops that has the highest amount of payouts, that would wipe out Jesse's books. But okay, fine, get the restitution if you want to get the restitution, get the probation, but to sentence him to five months

in Cook County Jail with murderers and rapists, which by the way, as Dr. Carr pointed out, he didn't just give lesser or lower sentences, he actually set aside jury verdicts, convictions of sex offenders and gave them lower sentences. He actually set aside jury verdicts, convictions of sex offenders and gave them lower sentences. He statistically did that higher than any other judge. So he is completely full

of shit when he talks about being a serious person deliberating the sentence or the crime charge. Because if you are that hard on Jesse Smollett but you go easy on sex offenders, there's something wrong with your ass. I knew we, of course, we were in the middle of the story out of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and State Senator Marilyn Moore was holding.

Senator Moore, if you like, certainly you watched this. We were all watching it, riveted by it. Just any reaction you may have to what we just witnessed out of Chicago. Well, every time I think I can be surprised, I'm not surprised. Because I see it every place we go. The unfairness. What he did, if he did it, is wrong.

But that soliloquy for 40 minutes, I thought was uncalled for. I just thought it was uncalled for. And his summary of what Jesse did to his community and to his friends in high places and all those things and being a joke, I thought that's all uncalled for as a professional. I would not have expected that. Larry, your thoughts on what we just witnessed. Roland, I thought I was watching an episode of Law & Order. That's all I kept thinking when I heard the judge and his long statement.

You know, and like everyone else, I'm shocked. And I don't know, you know, once we talk about the disproportionate rate in which black people are treated when it comes to, you know, being arrested. And then, you know, how arrested and then, you know, how we're dealt with once we, you know, go to trial. And this is pretty much what we talk about all the time, right? And so we have to once again ask ourselves when people say that when black people are raising concerns about, you know, us being disproportionately arrested, and then also in terms, like I said, how we're treated by judicial system, this is exhibit A of what we're talking about. Obviously, this is a high profile case. The judges were very aware of that and all the other people who raised concern over the last

couple of years over the trial and also the agreement. But once again, is this real life or is this TV? And once again, like I said, I feel like I need to shake myself to make sure, like I said, I'm not, I haven't fallen asleep, woken up and I'm watching an episode of Law & Order in the middle of the night. The thing is, he was found guilty. He was found guilty. But again, we talk about a low level four felony. And when you look at the amount of money, first of all, that you spend, the question still comes out. You fine him one hundred and some odd thirty thousand dollars. Does it make sense to also send him to jail for one hundred and fifty days? days. Now, and that there should never be a trial tax, which means that you should not be punished

more because you went to trial. I just beat a murder case about three months ago here in Connecticut. And the judge said on the record, just because your client was found not guilty doesn't mean he was found innocent. So what, and we've always said we have to respect the jury's verdict. For this judge to say that he purges himself for hours upon hours upon hours, this judge is making a conclusion that he's the jury and that what Jesse was saying wasn't true. I thought that was shocking to hear him say, because first of all, an individual who testifies can say what they want to say. And even if the jury finds them guilty, well, they find them guilty. But for him to say you perjured yourself.

Right. How can he make that conclusion? He doesn't know he wasn't there. You know, I mean, if you don't believe him, that's fine. We leave it to the jury. And jury's been wrong. The juries have been wrong in history. But we respect their verdict. But you don't get on the bench and say that you lied, you lied, you lied. Who are you? How do you know that? You know, so I thought that was highly inappropriate. And again, you know,

he talked about you made $2 million a year, as though he was angry about that. And it was just not focused on what it should be focused on, whether in fact there's a danger to danger to the community, whether, in fact, probation is sufficient but not greater than. In the federal court, the judges always on the 3553A factors, the Booker case, said you must sentence or fashion a sentence that's sufficient but not greater than that's needed to meet the ends of justice. And six months or five months in jail for this gentleman that is clearly not a threat to the community. Probation could have done it. He had advocates speaking for him. It's just incarceration like slavery for no reason. Like, Kalief Browder went to jail all that time waiting, sentencing, and ended up killing himself when he came out, because he became suicidal. And he's just damaging this guy. And he could probably do public service announcements

and do other things outside of jail that could serve us better than just locking him up in cages. Folks, you can weigh in on this. The phone number to call is 202-890-1199, 202-890-1199. Remember, those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, you get to actually call in. You support this show. And so we cross-check those names. And so if you're a member of our Bring the Funk fan club and you want to share your thoughts regarding the Justice Smollett sentencing, call

202-890-1199. Greg Carr, when we unpack this and look, there are African-Americans who were pissed off with Jussie Smollett. There are African-Americans who believe that Jussie Smollett was wrong. They believe that he did indeed commit a hoax. You heard there at the end where he proclaimed, I am innocent. He did not back down from that. I think his defense team was shocked at his response, at his outburst. And he said, you know, he had his hands up, you know, Judge, I respect you,

but even after this, going out of the courtroom, being led out of the courtroom by Cook County sheriffs, he made it perfectly clear that he was not backing off of his position, that he was innocent of this hoax. Of course. And I agree with you, Doc. Dr. Walker was almost like law and order or maybe episode of Empire. I think, you know, we were all doing the same thing. We were trying to read body language and faces, looking at the black bailiff over there, the brother over in the corner, you know, we wondering, is this what this judge does? Is Lynn going on like this, on and on and on? Looking at his defense attorneys, my man said, he said, are you representing him? He said, yeah, for now.

And then the sister came up trying to get the thing set aside. I mean, at this point, if I were them, I'd probably be trying to ask for some protective custody because they're Cook County Jail and Independent Tentatory. But at the same time, you know, there's a lot of moving parts here. But at the end of the day, when he said what he said, it almost sounds like a setback is a setup for a comeback. In other words, are you trying to frame the narrative not only to steel yourself against what you might be facing for the next five months in Cook County Jail, but for whatever

narrative you're going to try to pitch to Netflix after that's over, because at the end of the day, as John Henry Clark, the historian, used to say, in some stories, it ain't no good guys. I'm certainly not caping for Jussie Smollett. His whole defense was he didn't do it. Now, do I believe he did it? Absolutely. Do I believe that that's defensible action? I do not. At the same time, though, when he went, quote unquote, off script, at least to everybody else, he was probably right on script for the only play he has decided he has, which is, if I'm going to tell this lie, I'm going to lie all the way to the end of the line. I mean, I think what we just saw was, in fact, I agree with

you, it's like real-time theater. But I think he just said, hell, if I'm going to say I'm not guilty, I'm damn sure not going to switch it up now, especially after the man called me a liar from the bench and said my name is synonymous with lying. I'm like, yo. Yeah, that was, that was, I was very, to be perfectly honest, Recy, I was very shocked by that reaction. We were in New York last week for the 95th birthday celebration of Harry Belafonte.

Justice Smollett was actually there. The interview that he did with us was the only interview that he did with any media. He has not spoken publicly since this trial started, has not said much in interviews at all. But even I sat here with my mouth open after that judge sentencing to see the reaction from him. You clearly saw his attorneys were trying to, first of all, set aside the sentence, trying to keep him out of jail. If we had that video and you roll it back, I mean, you can see his defense team scrambling. I mean, they were literally like, what the hell just happened? I think even

they were shocked and stunned when he was sentenced. Well, I don't know what. Oh, I'm sorry. Reese, I'm going to go to Darnell. Reese, go ahead. I mean, I wasn't shocked. Like I said, he was trying to get his OJ on. So that's what the host

politically and performance was for. I actually am probably one of the few people that will say, I think that Jesse is innocent. I think that there was a staged attack, but I don't think he was in on it. But that's an unpopular opinion and outstanding, and I don't care. But my other opinion is also, who gives a fuck even if he was guilty?

It's really not as big of a deal as people are making it out to see. I'm not one of those people that tries to say that what one Black person does, oh, that's going to reflect poorly on the whole race, yada, yada, yada. People that think poorly of Black people think poorly of Black people, whether Jesse Smollett lied or whether he was really attacked. So that really doesn't even matter to me.

But to be honest, he would have gained so much more over the past three years if he would have just said, I did it. He could have said I was depressed. He could have said I was risking my job. I was desperate. He could have claimed a whole number of things where people would have been sympathetic to him. So he's actually lost more by maintaining his innocence. So that's why I'm more inclined to believe that he is a victim here. But again, whether he is a liar, victim, perpetrator, whatever the situation may be, we got bigger shit going on, especially in the city of Chicago, where in the year 2021 had the highest murder rate

in over 25 years. So I'm just saying the proportionality of the attention that the city of Chicago devoted resources to, and now they're going to devote incarceration resources to, is completely absurd. Darnell, go ahead. Yeah, I think when you look at the response of the defense team, they clearly thought he was going home. They clearly thought it was a probationary sentence. They were preparing for a probationary sentence. And it caught them off guard. Again, typically, if you file an appeal, you will get the judge to stay the sentencing pending the appeal. And if you lose the appeal, then he goes in. And in a case like this,

where it's not going to be a problem to the prosecution, because the guy is not a threat to society, the judge could have easily stayed that appeal. But I saw the defense team panicking because they already were preparing for him to get a probationary sentence. And just lastly, on that same level, he's already had, he has a felony now. And the judge used the word permanent as though he could never get it exonerated, which was very interesting. Typically, in America now, you have a right to expungement after a certain time. Five years from the time you finish probation, to expungement after a certain time, five years from the time you finish probation and felonies, three years from the time when you finish probation for misdemeanors.

But he said you have a permanent felony. And so if he already has a permanent felony, and he's from riches to rags and all the other things, then why do you have to now add more incarceration on top of that. And so as a lawyer, I've had people who have been arrested for bringing a noose to work, and they don't get jail. And so that's not a hate crime. I don't know. They bring the noose to work. We had a work site down here, Turner Construction,

and this white guy was putting nooses up and putting nigger this and nigger that, probation only. So he faked it and got jail when the person actually did the hate crime at these workplaces, and it has become an employment situation, discrimination situation, no jail. So there you have it with the disparities. I want to go to the phone lines. Let's go to Wanda Weathers. She's calling from Miami, Florida. Wanda Weathers, you're on Roller Martin Unfiltered. What's your comment?

Wanda, are you there? Wanda Weathers, are you there? All right, folks, let me know when y'all get the phone call straight. Larry, it was interesting listening to that. It was sort of, I think, let me just go ahead and say it. I think it was also sort of bait and switch by the judge. Because he goes 30 months probation. He goes on and on.

He goes through. You're going to pay the amount. Oh, by the way, you're going to begin the first 150 days your probation in cook honey jail and i was like that's where i thought think the defense also was shocked and stunned yeah rolling defense everyone in the courtroom everyone watching including us you hear from everyone on on this panel was completely shocked i I was shocked. And, you know, you say you're reading the body language. Listen to the judge go on and on and on. And like I said, it feels like a docudrama or something. It didn't even feel like real life.

And it also felt like there were a couple of things. I feel like the judge was performing, first of all. And second of all, it seemed like he was unpacking a lot of his feelings about, you know, maybe celebrities or, you know, I don't know, but it sounds like he spent a lot of time unpacking his own personal feelings. And look, judges are human beings like everyone else. But like you said, five months to send him in jail, send him to jail when he's not a threat to the community is baffling. And like I said, we talk about these issues once again about, obviously, celebrity. But also to remind her, I thought it was also interesting, Roland, he mentioned his racial background, which I thought was very odd. And also maybe it was telling in the very

beginning of the conversation that we should have known that maybe down the line something else was going to happen. Because when you mention that, I'm thinking, how does this relate to what's happening? But then I reminded myself, I know what's going on, and I should prepare myself for an interesting outcome. But once again, he did kind of a do-it-bait-and-switch. He went on, kind of talked about members of NAACP, Jesse Jackson being a rainbow push coalition, you're a social justice advocate, you've done all this wonderful work, et cetera, et cetera. Two things we should have realized when he talked about his racial background and how much money he made. And when we heard those two things, we should have known at the very end that something else was going down. Let's go to the phone lines.

If we can now get to Wanda Weathers. She's calling from Miami, Florida. Wanda, you're on Roller Martin Unfiltered. What's your reaction to the Jesse Smollett sentencing? Yes. I'm trying to figure out how it is that the Karens were getting away with all these false accusations over the past couple of years, and they get a slap on the hand. And now here you are, you have someone who's an actor and you want to give him 150 days inside of a nasty jail. I just don't understand it. It makes no sense. Excellent point.

Who wants to respond to that? Karen. I'll just say real quick, Dr. Walker-Larry, you said it right. Sissawanda, I think what we just saw was, and I think you're right, Larry, this was an opportunity for people, for that judge to do a lot of things, his star turn, wash his sins, squash some beefs with the state's attorney's office, show that he's tough, show that he's a white liberal ex-hippie in Chicago, a black city where he's been sitting on the bench for decades, and he don't want Jesse Jackson and them mad at him.

A whole lot was going on in that. And at the end of the day, in trying to speak to everything and everybody, he said nothing to anybody. And as I said, whether Justice Smollett did it or not is secondary. I hope it remains secondary with the time he's going to spend in the county because that's no joke in Chicago. And as you say, Ray, see, there are real issues going on in Chicago. But the

real issue that we face is when you have somebody like this who is a white-hot celebrity that everybody is looking at, that becomes the prism for all the underlying celebrity that everybody is looking at, that becomes the prism for all the underlying problems that have nothing to do with that actual act. That judge said a whole lot of nothing. And when he talked about celebrity, when he talked about race, as you say, Larry, when he did all that, what you basically saw is all of the sores and sins of the collisions of where we are in this country visited upon somebody because this cat realized he had the biggest megaphone he was ever going to have in his life.

And it definitely was. It was, again, the protection, if you will, there of the police department where he singled out the homicide division in particular. I thought that was interesting. Let's actually go to... Which doesn't solve crimes. Yeah, let's go to Tracy Logan. She's calling from Chicago. Tracy Logan, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Hey, Roland.

Good to see everybody. Thanks for the panel. And let me just say, Recy, I love you. Don't change your person for nothing because we're alike, so loving that. Just kind of wanted to tell you that Chicago, look, politics, the law, everything is not how it seems. So I would say that we have a very different feeling about Jesse here. We never a lot of people didn't think he was innocent. A lot of people

thought that it was a hoax. A lot of black people were upset that, you know, he did this. So I know you guys all have a lot of good comments and no, I don't think most people thought that he would get 150 days in lockup. Cause I don't think anybody thought that that was necessary. You know, maybe, you know, a slap on the wrist, probation, maybe a week, because he does not want to be locked up in Cook County for no reason, just like Dr. Carver said. You don't want to be there. So I just wanted to kind of let you guys know the feeling in Chicago is just a little bit different

because here on the ground, you know, when that all happened, it was bad enough what was going on in the country with Trump and all that stuff. We just didn't need that happening in Chicago at the time. We got the crime, we got the police, and shooting Black people. So we just did not need that. And with him, and it did seem like a whole acting thing. Look, he bought stuff. The rope was white. Ain't no white people going to get you a brand new rope to do nothing to Black people. So people just did not believe him. And I feel sorry for him because he probably generally is a decent person, but he just made bad decisions. And unfortunately, I don't kind of want to curse, but you can't F around with people in Chicago and judges and police and stuff.

You just can't come here and do that. So he kind of, I'm kind of like Reesey. He should have just, you know, claimed it and said, okay, I did this. Let me do the right thing and plead guilty. But here we are. So I feel bad for him. And I wanted to ask the lawyers of the group, is there any way that you can complain about the judge in some of these states? Like who can you complain about the judge about? Because I really did think that rant he went on was too much. Darnell?

Yeah. judge about, because I really did think that rant he went on was too much. Darnell? Yeah, so judges just like lawyers are subject to the grievance panel. So if there's any complaints that somebody wants to make against the judge, they'll make it to the Chicago Bar Association and to the grievance committee. And the judges have to be here in Connecticut are reappointed every eight years. And if there's any complaints that are pending at reappointment, they won't get reappointed. So that's a simple process. Let's go to Jesse Gonzalez, also in Chicago. Jesse Gonzalez, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Your thoughts regarding the Justice Smollett sentencing. Yes, sir. I'm here. I just want to quote a beautiful judge, quote-unquote, start. You put the noose around your own neck. We, the people of Chicago,

overwhelmingly grateful for how this honorable judge articulated in putting that clown where he belongs. Goodbye. All right. Let's go to, I'm sorry, someone's going to respond to that. Yeah. Make sure it's not you in the dock next time, brother. Listen, Roland, Larry, Larry, Larry, go ahead. I mean, listen, we just you know, we just we just had we just had some federal issues we signed regarding lynching in America. Right. So I want to connect that comment to some recent, you know, the President Biden's going to sign, right? So listen, this idea about using anything phrasing or imagery

regarding lynching or ropes in America, you should keep comments like that to yourself. Thank you. Bridget Hill from Nashville, Tennessee. Bridget, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's your... Hey, Roland. Hey, how you doing? How you doing? I love this show. I am a member, and I love you, Recy. You are my

powerful woman, okay? I love you guys, too, but she is so wonderful. But what I do want to say is people don't understand. It's not when it comes to us Black people. It's not what's right or wrong. It's what we can prove. Period. It's what we can prove. They can tell any kind of lie they want to. They can write it down. They can make it up. But because it comes from the police or comes from somebody that's supposed to be in power, they don't even respect us.

So the lady that just came on and said what she said, that was so disrespectful because you wasn't there and you don't know respect us. So the lady that just came on and said what she said, that was so disrespectful because you wasn't there and you don't know what happened. I don't think he did it. I don't think he did it. I think that judge is all racist coon. And this is actually one of these modern day lynchings. That's how I feel. Okay. You know, I just think it's awful that, you know, they did him like that. But like that other lady said, what about the other people that these Karen's that's out here lying on us and our black people, nothing gets done. So, you know, we got to let them know who we are. We are human beings and I stand up for him. Thank you so much. Okay, I appreciate you giving us a call. Thank you so very much. You know, it is going to be very interesting to watch others' reaction

to this. Remember, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel, I mean, he, him, the superintendent, I mean, they went off. I mean, they were indignant. The anger, frankly, I thought it was a joke, if you will, to see Rahm Emanuel so indignant when he protected that videotape for a year in the Laquan McDonald death there. Exactly. And that, you know, So again, it was watching all of that play out too.

And again, this was an indication. They clearly did not say, fine, Kim Fox, you do your job. It was kind of like, oh, hell no. I mean, we are going to make an example out of Justice Mulan. That's why it continued. The reality is this case had been adjudicated.

Charters had been dropped. They had come to an agreement, but they were like, oh, hell no. We want more. We want more. He is going to pay. And they got exactly what they wanted today. Recy, go ahead. I'm reminded. Darnell, then Recy, go ahead. Before I went to law school, my mother made me read this book called Black Rose, White Justice by Bruce Wright, who's a black judge out of New York. Great book. Yeah, exactly. He used to have a saying. They called him Set Him Loose Bruce.

And he was like, if it was nonviolent, turn him loose. And they accused him of jury nullifications because even after a guilty verdict, if it was nonviolent, he would set him loose. And in this particular case, we're not saying today whether Jesse was right or wrong. We're saying he was found guilty. We got that part. Now the question is, what type of sentence do you do for this type of gentleman? Never been in trouble before, never had a record before, not a threat to society. And to put him in chains in Cook County, I can't possibly see that fitting all the remarks that the judge was trying to make with the mitigations, with the support. And at the end, like everybody in the panel said, it was like he's almost letting them walk. And

then he said, oh, by the way, just put this nigger on here for 150 days. I thought he was going to do maybe 30 days. But 150 days? That doesn't comport. And again, it's black, black robes, white justice all day long. Um, to, to the control room. Um, if y'all could, um, if you could pull up our Facebook page. So a couple of things are happening right now. We're live on Roland Martin unfiltered. I know we're going over our eight o'clock time. We also have a live stream up on the Black Star Network app of a camera that is outside of the courtroom waiting to hear if Jussie's family or even the prosecutors or others are going to speak there. So we're going to go live to that if they do approach the microphone there. I do want to show, though, I want to show, before I go to Recy, I want to show again for the folks what happened after the judge sentenced Jussie Smollett to 30 months in probation, but then said 150 days first in the Cook County Jail.

This was Jussie's reaction. I am not suicidal. That's what I was about to say. This was Jussie's reaction. in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community. Your Honor, I respect you and I respect the jury, but I did not do this and I am not suicidal. And if anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself. And you must all know that. I respect you, Your Honor. I respect your decision. Jail time. I am your decision. Jail time? I am not suicidal. Mr. Uche, let me inquire. Are there any post-sentencing motions you care to present right now?

Yes, Judge. The defense would wish to present a motion to reconsider sentence and file it in the standard. It is timely filed. And let me say, I've obviously considered the sentence at great length. And it's timely filed, so it's preserved for purposes of appeal. The motion to reconsider sentence is respectfully denied.

Is there another? One second, Randy. Anything else? Just a second, just a second. Is there going to be a notice of appeal filed? Yes, Judge. We're following the notice of appeal. We're going to be emailing of appeal filed? Yes, Judge. We're found on notice of appeal. We're going to be emailed to our friend in the office.

You're doing it in standard? In standard. And are you going to be handling the appeal? As of now, yes. Well, you have to commit to handling the appeal. Yes, Judge. Yes, we're found on notice of appeal. All right. Notice of appeal may be filed. Charlotte, now I need the prosecutors to work with Charlotte, the probation officer,

to work out probation specifications with the conditions I just explained. 150 days in the county jail, restitution, fines. Oh, and also, as well, that's statutory. So you have to fill out the probation specifications. And I'm going to get somebody to help you do that. But we need to get that done and stand firm. Anything else tonight? Yes.

Your Honor, if I may, in light of the Notice of Appeal, we would ask that you suspend the jail sentence in light of the Do what? in-state refidement of the Notice of Appeal. Did I do what? Suspend the jail sentence in light of the Notice of Fidement of Appeal. That would be respectfully denied. Your Honor. Yes, Mark.

Mr. Lewis. If it can be stayed in light of our Notice Yes, Mark. Mr. Lewis. If it can be stayed in light of our bill. No. I'm not staying. No, no, no. The wheels of justice turn slowly and sometimes the hammer of justice has to fall and it's falling right here, right now. I'm not staying this. This happens right here, right now.

Charlotte. I know you said that Mr. Smollett I'll talk to you about it. I'll give you his details. Okay. Okay? All right. Any other matters to come before the court today? All right.

Defendants are manned into the custody of the sheriff. Court is adjourned. I am not suicidal. I am not suicidal. And I am innocent. I could have said that I was guilty a long time ago. Sometimes the hammer of justice has to fall. Go back to the—and this was the video again of his family leaving the courtroom. Obviously, I don't know what that remark was by one of the folks with the family to the court there, but wow. Even when you play that back, you see very clearly there, Darnell, where Jesse Smollett, adamant that he

is innocent. Yeah, you know, I was listening to that comment, too. It sounded like somebody said, stop doing this to black people. So it was clear that they were supporting Jesse. But when you played that tape back, something came more clear to me, I think, what Jesse was doing, which is quite ingenious. He was saying, I'm not suicidal. Because like with Sandra Bland and some other cases, if he goes in there and he ends up dead, and then they try to say, oh, he was just this actor that couldn't take this and he killed himself. He was already debunking that theory, that if I'm dead, they killed me. So that played in my head when he said it again, when you just replayed it. He was making it clear. They'm dead, they killed me. So that was, that played in my head when he said it again when you just replayed it. He was making it clear.

They killed me. They killed me. It wasn't me. Greg? He's right. Yes. Yes. It seemed like, like I said, there was a lot going on. Those attorneys seemed stunned. Their response was stunned. Obviously, he's

pled what he's pled, and he's sticking to his guns. If you're the attorney, do you ask for a psych eval at this point? Are you trying to get protective custody? Are you trying to get him out of gin, pop? The reality is that this judge has done what he did. And I love the fact that in his star turn, he realized he had a mixed metaphor there. First of all, the wheels are turning and then the hammer fell. I'm like, is this a hammer on the wheel? But anyway, the point is that at that point, you need to be fighting for your client because I agree with you, Kelsey. I mean, this cat got to go in there. And I mean, when you start when you mix celebrity with a crime that has a sexual innuendo in it. I mean, this is a guy who I mean, I don't know that I would be so much worried about the jailers, although Cook County is known as a book called Crook County.

It talks about the notorious history of Cook County jail. But I'd also be worried about those inmates. I mean, to the point that Reese made a minute ago, I mean, that fist in the air, sure, the politics, but, man, while we at home tonight, this cat is in Cook County Jail. And it ain't like any of us. Well, maybe not you, Ron, because you are a celebrity. But he is a celebrity and a young guy. I think there's just a lot for him to be concerned about. And as far as his lawyers are concerned, I think, I don't know. I mean, and again, I'm not going to, obviously

a curbstone opinion is worth what you paid for it, but I don't know, man. I just feel like his attorneys need to be regrouping now, trying to fight for this guy in the real world rather than trying to win some larger argument in society. Folks, if you are just tuning in, it was a little more than an hour ago,

actually less than an hour ago, when a Chicago judge sentenced Jesse Smollett to 30 days, excuse me, 30 months probation after a class four low-level felony. But then he said he must spend the first 150 days of his probation in Cook County Jail. And that was immediately. He was walked out of court by the Sheriff's Department, directed to Cook County Jail. I'm quite sure they're going to be soon posting his jail photo in the orange suit, if you will. He was not walked out in handcuffs. You see there he was holding his overcoat, thrust his fist in the air, proclaiming his innocence.

And what we're doing now, we are waiting to see if the family or the prosecutors, if they are going to be speaking outside of the courtroom. This is a live look right now, right there in Chicago. We are carrying this live stream separately on the Black Star

Network. So we have, we actually got three streams going right now. So right now we, of course, have our show being live. This live look outside of we have, we actually got three streams going right now. So right now we, of course, have our show being live, this live look outside the courtroom, and, of course, we're live streaming

the Black Women's Roundtable conference as we speak. So that's one of the reasons why when we asked y'all to support the Black Star Network, we ain't just doing one thing. All of these streams are literally happening as we speak. And so, so much we've been unpacking here. And again, folks in the control room, please let me know. I would love to know the responses that we're seeing from folks out there in social media world, especially individuals who are friends of Jesse, who are supportive of him, want to get their thoughts and perspectives on what's happening here as well.

This is, you know, this has been, to the point you made, Reesey, look, this has been more than three years. I mean, this didn't happen last week. This has been going on and on and on. And folks thought it was over, but it is not. He obviously has a team. They're going to be appealing this. But as of right now, right now, Justice Smollett is sitting in Cook County Jail being processed.

Yeah, it's the whole the whole pretext behind pursuing this beyond what was already adjudicated was that some heinous harm had been done to hate crimes victims. And there's absolutely zero proof of that. This is all about deflecting away from the corruption of the Chicago PD, the half a billion dollars in claims that they've paid out, the high murder rate, which doesn't get solved, by the way, I know that as a Chicago resident, and the many other issues. And so if you can get everybody over here looking at Jesse, like Jesse is the worst thing that happened to the city of Chicago, give me a break. It's disgusting what's happening to him. I don't have an issue with people who said that he should pay restitution or he should get probation. I don't have an issue with people who said that he should pay restitution or he should get probation. I don't have an issue

with people who believe he's guilty. But I don't understand how anybody can believe that doing time behind bars for disorderly conduct, that's the charge. Disorderly conduct, okay? Now, I know that there are people who have gotten the death sentence, been executed, been modern-day lynched, Black people, because their music was too loud or whatever other trumped up reason. But the charge here is disorderly conduct. It's since when do people go to jail for 150 days for this for disorderly conduct? This is not an easy prison sentence. You know, so I think people are really missing that part about how, and Dr. Carr has really, you know, tried to drive it home, how harsh the sentence is just physically being incarcerated for up to 150 days. That's no small thing to sneeze at. And the judge thought,

I have, like, I think Dr. Carr said it earlier, or maybe it was Dr. Larry, he has the biggest megaphone that he's going to have. The spotlight is on him. So he wants to really prove his point and really knock this black man down. Let's actually go live right now. It looks like Jesse's family, they were just walking past the cameras there and did not stop at all. We was the feed. So just just a few moments ago, Justice Smollett's family walked past all of the cameras that are assembled there,

did not stop to speak to the reporters who are assembled there. I have reached out to a couple of his family members to get, to offer them an opportunity to come on the show to speak. But again, just a few moments ago as we were talking, the family walked by. And I'm not making any comment to all of the microphones assembled there. We'll see if they're going to a holding room, if they'll come back.

We're going to be on the air for about another five minutes. But remember, this stream that we have will continue to be up. So even if we sign off, you'll still be able to see what takes place there in the Cook County Courthouse. Rishi, go ahead and finish your comment. Yeah, the last thing I'll say is, as has been mentioned before, you know, when we talk about county jails, we have to think about Sandra Bland, who didn't even last a weekend in county jail. So any notion that 150 days is a lenient sentence or even an appropriate sentence is just really cruel and just doesn't mesh with reality. This is a disorderly conduct conviction. That's it. Larry? Yeah, Roland, I want to say that, you know, it's interesting in terms of, you know, this conversation, obviously, which we've witnessed for the last several minutes. But he's being treated more harshly than January 6th interactions.

What does that say about our society in terms of, you know, we heard the metaphor about the judge of, you know, the wheels of justice. So, you know, in terms of black America, you know, we used to wheeling the wheel and the hammer falling on us. Right. So I think that this, you know, you know, beyond the fact that he's a celebrity, you know, it's a reminder of what it's like to be black in America. And when it comes to the judicial system, I think it's that simple. Great. Yeah, I agree. I mean, again, this is the reason the Black Star Network is here, right, Roland, and why you've made it accessible to everyone in regards to ability to pay and why people are doing and digging deep to make sure that we support this. This is not going to be the conversation in any of the white-facing media. It's going to be about the celebrity. It's going to be floating pictures of him. talking about is, comes down at the end of the day to one simple thing, and Recy, you said it best, is take Jussie Smollett out of that courtroom and put your little sister

in there. Put your little brother in there. Counselor, have them defend it. And understand, as you said, Recy, in a city where people are taking our lives with impunity and we are fighting each other, you put all these resources on here as a diversion. Take Jussie Smollett's name out, put your name in that seat. And I think everything will become a lot clearer.

Darnell. You know, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about this. And when the judge gives this sort of passionate decision and when they keep talking about hate crimes as though they really care about it, it's like they use this opportunity to all of a sudden care about hate crimes. Hate crimes is Michael Brown. Hate crimes is Eric Garner. Hate crimes is all those terrorists that kill these people, kill black people on a daily basis. And now when, again, they have the opportunity to use Jesse Smollett as an example, all of a sudden we care so much

about hate crimes. And I'm not dismissing the fact that it's important, but don't kind of overplay this thing like that was your whole life mission. And now you really have to hammer down because, you know, because you went to sleep last night thinking, oh, I want you know, I want to bring the January 6th people to justice. I want to stop crime. You don't care. So don't don't don't use it like you care. And and lastly, I'll say on that term, somebody else mentioned about we should be the lawyers have been trying to get him in protective service. I represented Joe Holderman. He was accused of bribing, what's his name, David Letterman. And he came to my office after getting out of jail, and he was in jail with Lil Wayne. And he said to me, quite frankly, the first day, he goes, I was in population. He said, guess where Lil Wayne was?

And I said, where? He said he was in protective custody. And so he was just showing me that he was a tougher guy. Lil Wayne was a rapper. And he's just Joe Holderman, a CBS guy. But he survived in population. But Lil Wayne had to be hidden away. So, you know, I'm reminded of this. And I'm thinking Justice Smollett is quite concerned for his safety right now. And that's what came out of all that fist pumping and screaming that he's not suicidal. He wants protection. And in jail, it's not time to be the tough guy.

So, you know, I'm concerned that if we lose this guy, that's not the type of justice that was deserved based on the facts before us. He has a felony. He went from a court to his judge, from riches to rags. How much more justice do you need? Apparently, the family did speak with the cameras. It must have happened prior to me pulling the live feed up. And so this is, they spoke about two and a half minutes, and this is what they said outside of the courtroom. In 2022, we don't shame people like this. All right. He basically called him a mental case. All right.

If you look at that testimony, he basically reiterated and regurgitated all the prosecutors said. There was no there was no independence. This is a duly elected judge in Cook County. He's supposed to be elected by the people, not just a stooge and a rubber stamp for the prosecutors. And I'm very disappointed, very disappointed. My name is Jojo Smollett. I'm his oldest brother. Okay. Yeah. I have something I want to say quickly. Your name, ma'am?

My name is Jas Smollett. I'm his older sister. First of all, I want to say my brother is innocent. My brother, Jesse, is innocent. This should not be a controversial statement because it is the absolute truth. What should be controversial is the entire miscarriage of justice this whole ordeal has been. I pray peace over my brother.

I pray the peace of God over my brother and all victims of oppression and hate. I pray that we can do better as a world. May the God of peace be with you. Shalom. Your name, sir? My name is Jockey Smollett. peace be with you. Shalom. My name is Jockey Smollett. I am Jussie's youngest brother. My brother does not deserve this. I watched my brother go from being a complete victim, which he still is. He was attacked and he is now going to jail for being attacked. I saw my brother get locked up within

two weeks for being attacked. Do you know how get locked up within two weeks for being attacked. Do you know how crazy that is? They want to stay in that court and say—they want to stay in that court and say that he's the reason why folks aren't going to report hate crimes. They're the reason why folks aren't going to report hate crimes. Because none of you believed it. None of y'all believed it. We have letters from the NAACP, President Derrick Johnson himself.

We have letters from Rainbow Push Coalition. We have letters from the Innocence Project, all saying that he should not be in jail. And they put him in jail. That judge chastised him. He chastised my brother. He does not deserve this. He was attacked. Do people never once think, even the folks who are naysayers, do you ever once think

what happens if he's telling the truth? What if he's telling the truth? Do y'all ever think about how poorly you feel in that situation? He's in jail for five months. That is unacceptable for being attacked. It is not his fault that folks are not going to believe survivors anymore. He is a survivor, and he has been completely mistreated, and this has to stop. out. That was the family of Jesse Smollett speaking to reporters there in Chicago. We extended our coverage for about 30 some odd minutes. We still, again folks, we're going to end it here.

If you want to see, if you want to see the, if there will be any speakers from the prosecution team, simply go to the Black Star Network app. You will see the live feed that we have up courtesy of the Associated Press. And so we have that. It looks like there was a point there where the attorneys were going to, the prosecutors were going to address,

this might be from earlier, not quite sure. Let me do this here. Let me switch feeds here. Let me see if we can go ahead and switch feeds here. And actually it was from earlier where the special prosecutors talked. So what we'll do is we'll actually have all of that stuff folks tomorrow right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered.

We'll of course have more reaction. I have reached out to the family. Actually we do have the feed up. My apologies. Let me do this here. on Roland Martin Unfiltered. We'll, of course, have more reaction. I have reached out to the family. Actually, we do have the feed up. My apologies. Let me do this here. Let's see if I can go to this particular feed.

Folks, take it, please. The nature of that criminal misconduct of lying to police, that the collateral consequences of what Mr. Smollett did was to harm other gays and blacks because his conduct denigrated hate crimes. His conduct will discourage others who are the victims of hate crimes from coming forward and reporting those crimes to law enforcement and pursuing them. That was our position as to why this was a very

underlying serious criminal course of misconduct which had significant collateral consequences. The court today with his sentence, by imposing a significant jail sentence, by imposing the maximum amount of restitution, by imposing the maximum fine, and by imposing the maximum amount of probation, this judge clearly, in his comments, made it clear that he clearly has understood from the evidence we presented at trial that this was a course of conduct that deserved severe punishment based on the conviction that was obtained from the jury. Questions? What did you think about his outburst?

Well, I wasn't quite sure. I'm not going to interpret the outburst. I'm not going to interpret it. I don't know exactly what he was referring to, and I'm not going to interpret it. Are you surprised he's sticking to the story? Well, I've made the point during my argument to the judge that I thought one of the critical factors that the court should consider in determining how serious the underlying criminal conduct was and whether it warranted jail time was an argument I made that this defendant, Jesse Smollett, has never shown to the city of Chicago an ounce of contrition.

He's never once stood up to say, I'm sorry. He's never once stood up to accept responsibility for his criminal conduct. He has simply denied it, denied it, and denied it. So again, today, after he's now been convicted by a jury of five felony counts, after he heard a judge today excoriate his conduct as being reprehensible conduct, he still stood up in the courtroom and insisted that he's not going to ever admit or accept any responsibility for what he did to the Chicago Police Department or his violation of responsibility to other gays and African Americans because it's made it hard for people to report hate crimes because of his conduct.

His office sounds like they're definitely going to appeal. Will your office be working on that as well? Yes, the Special Prosecutor's Office is going to continue to handle the appeal. We're going to see this all the way to the end, and the answer is yes. Why does he feel confident not recommending the sentence? Well, here's my position. During the course of handling this case, the court system gave us an extremely— All right, folks, that's the prosecutor speaking there.

So we're going to end it there. If you want to continue to watch that, simply go to the live stream of the Black Star Network app. Darnell Crossland, let me thank you. I know we had you on to talk about the Connecticut case. We're going to continue focusing on that. Thank the state senator, Morf, as well. But, of course, breaking news is breaking news.

Let me also thank Larry, Recy and Greg for staying over. I know we went longer than we normally do, but it's important for us to get our voice out here speaking on these stories, on these issues. Because you know, when you have these other networks out here, you see very few of us giving our perspective in real time on what happens. And you can go back to the five box. So let me let me say this here. Can I say one more thing? Yeah, Risa, go ahead. I just want to say in the city that had the highest murder rate in 25 years, the two brothers that everybody agrees on violently attacked Jesse and they found guns and drugs in their house are free,

and the person who reported the crime is behind bars for the next five months. So don't... Don't... Don't... I don't want to hear nothing about justice. I don't want to hear anything about the severity of the crime or anything like that. And when you have two people who have two other crimes, allegedly, let me put it like that,

because this is a news show, that they have been busted doing, walking free. All right. One of the things that's important for y'all to understand is this here, and I posted several things today on my Twitter feed, on my Instagram feed, actually on my social media. There's Darnell Cooks.

Brother, so people have been saying he's been doing all kinds of things. And so folks were coming at me saying, why haven't I been reporting on this? And I had to explain to people, y'all, we don't have two, five, ten reporters around here. It's me and my staff. And if y'all want to understand why we do what we do, why it's important to give,

do y'all understand why I'm fighting like hell against the federal government to get part of the $1 billion spent for advertising, the $322 billion being spent every year in general marketing, so we can actually have reporters. It would have been great for us to have our own reporter in Chicago on the scene covering this trial, talking with the family right there. It would be great for us to be able to have.

I would love to send a reporter to Bridgeport, Connecticut and actually walk the scene of that crime and talk to people there and talk to investigators. But I need y'all to understand, Fox News has $1.5 billion in profit every year. Not revenue, profit. CNN, $1 billion in profit. MSNBC, about $700 million in profit. Do y'all understand that Brian Roberts, who is the CEO of Comcast, had a call, an investor's call, and he said that Peacock, the streaming network, the OTT network of NBC, they are projected to lose this year $2.5 billion. And it's still in business. They lost $1.7 billion last year. So they got no problem losing $4.2 billion in two years. Do you know why?

Because that's what happens when you make multiple billions in revenue. And so this is why black-owned media is in the state that it is in. This is why black-owned media spends its time talking about gossip and reality shows and entertainment and sports and not covering anything substantive unless it blows up because we are being frozen out. And so I just need y'all to understand. Look, us extending this show 30 minutes, I mean 41 minutes, I got to pay for that. So don't think for a second that, oh, this thing just sort of happened. People go, oh, why aren't you covering these things? It is because we don't have the same level of resources. And so when you hear me talk about black-owned advertising, I need you to like and comment and reshare on social media because trust me,

they're watching. They're paying attention. Because if not, we will never be able to cover our own story. Guys, play that video, play that again, the shot of black-owned media. The only reason we're at this point is because we had black media who actually sent people to places. And you see, look on that wall, Emerge, you see Ebony, you see Black Enterprise, you see Savoy, you see all of those, you see Ida B. Wells' newspaper, You see Essence. Folks, those days are gone. Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Land Daily World. Those worlds are gone. We have been decimated by the industry, folks, because of systematic racism.

So we're in this fight. And we need you to be in this fight. So that's why we say we got to download the app, because you know what they're looking at? First question they ask me, Roland, how many downloads you got? And if I say 32,000, we need 100,000 or a quarter of a million. That's why it matters. And so we want you to download the Black Star Network app. We ask you to give because we're not getting the resources. Okay. That want you to download the Blackstar Network app. We ask you to give. It's because we're not getting the resources, okay? That's how you download the app. We ask you to

give to our Bring the Funk fan club. I didn't put a subscription on this for a reason. I knew our people could not, everybody couldn't spend that money. So yeah, when them brothers and sisters give me a dollar, trust me, that dollar plus another dollar plus three dollars plus five, it all adds up. And so Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. PO Box is 57196 Washington, D.C. 20037. I'm going to end this way. I spent six years at CNN. I spent 13 months at the Austin American Statement. I spent two and a half years at the

Fort Worth Telegram. I've worked in mainstream media. I have no interest in working in mainstream media. Because I'm not trying to ask somebody who doesn't look like me, can I please go cover black people? And so there's a reason me working at KKDA Radio, black targeted, white owner but black targeted,

Dallas Examiner, black owned, Dallas Weekly, black owned, Houston Defender, black owned, Chicago Defender, black owned, major broadcasting cable network, black owned, Savoy Magazine, black owned, blackamericareweb.com, black owned, Tom's Journal Morning Show, black owned, TV One, black owned. All of those black media entities I've worked at. And now we have, of course, Black Star Network and RollerMart Unfiltered. We wish to plead our own cause

to long have others spoken for us. Folks, I'm telling you, we will rue the day when we, 5, 10, 20, 30 years from now, do not have black-owned media, and we're asking somebody else, can y'all please report us? Can y'all please talk about something from our perspective? I'm not interested in asking. I'm interested in us owning. So that's why we need your support. Darnell, Greg, Recy, Larry,

I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. I appreciate all of you for watching as well. You know how to support us. We give y'all a out. I was in again. We all give us on YouTube. Don't give there. I appreciate YouTube. We only get 55 cents on every dollar you spend there. Give to us direct when we get the full 100% when you give to us folks, that's it. I'll see you tomorrow right here on roller Martin unfiltered.

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