High court says Cook County’s initial agreement with actor is binding; former state official can sue Sun-Times
By JERRY NOWICKI
Capitol News Illinois
jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com
SPRINGFIELD – Criminal convictions of actor Jussie Smollett will be dismissed, and a defamation lawsuit against the Chicago Sun-Times will be allowed to continue, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in a slate of opinions Thursday.
The high court ruled disorderly conduct charges against Smollett should be dismissed because if they were allowed to stand, he would have been charged for the same crime twice, in violation of his due process rights.
Read more: State Supreme Court hears arguments in Jussie Smollett’s effort to overturn conviction
Smollett’s case dates to 2019, when he made what turned out to be a false police report alleging that he’d been violently attacked by two men in downtown Chicago. Smollett, an actor at the time in the Fox TV drama “Empire,” claimed the men punched him and yelled homophobic slurs, put a noose around his neck and told Smollett, “This is MAGA country,” a reference to then-President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
A month later, prosecutors charged Smollett with 16 counts of disorderly conduct for putting on the hoax with a pair of brothers he’d paid to perpetrate the attack. But Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx drew sharp criticism when her office suddenly dropped the charges. As part of what the court ruled was a binding agreement with Foxx’s office, Smollett voluntarily forfeited his $10,000 bond and performed community service.
The state’s attorney’s office said in court the deal constituted a “just disposition” of the case and it was accepted by a judge.
Smollett’s lawyers argued that deal constituted a non-prosecution agreement and punishment, marking what should have been an end for the case.
But under public scrutiny, Cook County enlisted a special prosecutor who filed six new disorderly conduct charges against Smollett in 2020. He was convicted in 2021 and given a 150-day jail sentence, which has been put on hold as Smollett goes through the appeals process. Now, he’ll never serve it.
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that Foxx’s initial decision to drop the charges was, in fact, a non-prosecution agreement.
“We are aware that this case has generated significant public interest and that many people were dissatisfied with the resolution of the original case and believed it to be unjust,” Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Rochford wrote in a Thursday opinion. “Nevertheless, what would be more unjust than the resolution of any one criminal case would be a holding from this court that the State was not bound to honor agreements upon which people have detrimentally relied.”
In a 5-0 ruling with justices Mary Jane Theis and Joy V. Cunningham abstaining, the justices overruled the appellate court and circuit court decisions, directing the lower court to dismiss the convictions.
Sun-Times defamation case
The justices also unanimously ruled that a former chair of the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board can continue to sue the Chicago Sun-Times for its reporting on his handling of a property tax appeal at Trump Tower.
Mauro Glorioso, a former chair of the Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board who later became its executive director, sued the newspaper in 2021, alleging he was defamed by coverage of the board’s handling of a property tax appeal for Trump Tower in downtown Chicago.
Read more: Sun-Times seeks dismissal of defamation suit centered on Trump Tower reporting
The reporting centered on an anonymous November 2019 complaint to the state’s Office of Executive Inspector General that named Glorioso and others. The paper obtained a copy of the complaint, which outlined alleged misconduct that occurred when Glorioso was PTAB’s chairman, but not yet its executive director.
The complaint, which has since been ruled unfounded by the OEIG, claimed that Glorioso, a Republican, told staff “he wanted a large reduction in the assessment of Trump Tower because the owner of the property was the president of the United States.”
Staff had not initially recommended reducing property taxes, but ultimately altered their decision to recommend a $1 million reduction. A chief administrative law judge later said that decision was made to rectify an overassessment that occurred in 2011, and the recommendation to reduce the assessment was upheld by an appellate court last year.
Glorioso’s lawsuit contends the paper mischaracterized the OEIG investigation, misstated Glorioso’s motivation as political and overstated his involvement in the decision.
The court wasn’t asked to decide whether the paper engaged in defamation, but rather whether the suit should be dismissed as a “strategic lawsuit against public participation” under the state’s Citizen Participation Act. That state law is designed to protect against litigation that “chills and diminishes citizen participation in government.”
To have the lawsuit thrown out as a SLAPP, the Sun-Times had to show its reporting was “in furtherance of government participation” and that the lawsuit was both meritless and retaliatory.
The opinion noted that the Sun-Times argued its news articles furthered government participation because they addressed a matter of “public concern” and were “’investigative reports’ about the activities of a public official within a government agency.”
Glorioso’s team argued such protections are not specifically conferred in the law, and the justices agreed, stating the law does not protect all news reporting.
“The Act’s plain language encompasses acts of ‘participation in government’ and does not contain language extending such protection to speech regarding matters of public concern that do not amount to ‘government’ participation,” Justice David K. Overstreet wrote in his opinion, which was supported unanimously with Rochford abstaining.
Overstreet further wrote that the Sun-Times reporting wasn’t investigative in nature but was rather detailing a separate government investigation.
“The articles did not constitute a firsthand account of an investigation conducted by defendants into government activities, and an objective reader would consider the purpose of the articles was to report the news, rather than to elicit a particular action on the part of government or the electorate,” Overstreet wrote.
The decision upheld rulings at the circuit court and appellate level, allowing the defamation suit to move forward at the lower level.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
