Jussie Smollett and the rush to judgment

24 thoughts on “Jussie Smollett and the rush to judgment”

1. I don’t have any comment on this directly one way or the other, but in an interesting coincidence of timing, it seems the mayor of our second biggest city here in British Columbia, Doug McCallum the mayor of Surrey, a city with a population of more than 500,000, is currently under investigation for the exact same thing.

   I don’t want to rush to any judgement on this either, because the mayor is also trying to currently replace the present federally employed RCMP with a local police force.

   In theory, it makes sense because the RCMP is under the jurisdiction of its federal organization, while a Surrey police force would be under the jurisdiction of a local police board. Apparently Surrey is either the biggest city in Canada or one of the biggest to contract out its policing to the RCMP. The RCMP is mostly employed in smaller towns that can’t afford their own administrations.

   That was a convincing argument in the 2018 election to get McCallum reelected as mayor (he had previously served from 1996-2005 and, I believe ran in every subsequent election) (along with running against Light Rail Transit (LRT) in Surrey and in favor of a Skytrain, which is essentially a subway in the sky rather than underground. It seems people pretty much everywhere dislike LRT.)

   However, it seems people in Surrey liked the idea in the abstract to get replace the RCMP with a local police force, but once footed with the larger bill for the local police force, and the upfront costs of the transition, that a lot of people in Surrey weren’t too happy and have been getting signatures to try to force a referendum.

   Apparently McCallum blamed a person organizing the referendum drive with running into him in her car and then backing over his foot in a parking lot outside a mall.

   So, no rush to judgement as, for what it’s worth, the RCMP who are to be replaced are the ones investigating, however:
   1.McCallum is the one who complained to the police, which is why this is being investigated as a fake police report.
   2.The woman in question immediately came forward and said Mayor McCallum was lying.
   3.There is surveillance video of the parking lot, which, I gather at this point, very few people, if anybody, outside of the police have seen.

2. Not a peep from Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx who dropped the original charges.

3. Jussie Smollett deserved to be condemned for orchestrating a fake hate crime. He was trying to benefit personally by pouring gasoline on the smoldering fire of race relations. But he also made it more likely the next GENUINE victim won’t be believed. I’ll be honest, I had doubts when I first heard of the attack. Something about it reminded me of staged racist attacks that have occurred on some college campuses. But the Chicago police did the right thing and investigated it as real until they found evidence it was fake.

   Smollett has provided clear evidence that he is really stupid. Paying a co-conspirator with a check is not very smart. That reminds me of the time that Jerry Springer (then mayor of Cincinnati) lost the Democratic nomination for Ohio Governor when it came out he had paid a hooker with a check. TV Land used to run these “retrcommercials.” One day I saw a Springer’s commercial apologizing and asking that people vote for him anyway. I bet it’s on YouTube somewhere. It’s definitely worth a watch.

   Once caught Smollett should have apologized and taken his slap on the wrist. But he went and put the state to the expense of a jury trial. I don’t have any experience with Illinois sentencing laws. But I did work extensively with the federal sentencing guidelines as a student helping inmates at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp for Women (Martha Stewart’s Alma Mater). In the federal system, your sentencing range is found on a grid where your criminal history is on one axis and the seriousness of the offense is on the other. A convicted crime will have a point value. But various factors can lead to reductions or enhancements. Accepting responsibility for your crime is (if I recall correctly) a 2 point reduction that nearly every defendant who accepts a plea agreement gets automatically. On the other hand, if a judge feels a defendant perjured themself, rather than putting the government to the expense of a perjury trial, the judge will enhance the sentence. I have read a former U.S. attorney’s op ed where he wrote that Smollett, by not accepting a plea agreement and then committing perjury, increased his probable sentence from probation to as many as three years.

   Smollett either got some truly awful advice from his lawyer or he is a idiot. Of course, both those things could be true.

   1. I should have probably added that by statute the maximum sentence he could receive is 15 years, 3 years for each of his 5 convictions. That one acquittal reduced his maximum sentence from 18 to 15 years. But it is highly unlikely he will receive anything near the maximum.

   2. It was a 1980 campaign ad. Jerry Springer looked so young!

      1. Thanks for a good analysis of this, Michael. I had not bothered to read about it. And hey, I looked young in 1980 as well! I guess it was just something in the air then.

         1. Thank you. I looked quite a bit younger myself. The advantage of a January 1 birthday is given any year, I know exactly how old I was. I was 12 the entire year. I wasn’t all that politically minded that year. I remember lots of people talking about the election as a Hobson’s choice of voting for an actor or Jimmy Carter. The actor won because of how extremely unsatisfied people were with Jimmy Carter. In 1984, I was 16 and had more fully formed political opinions. But my best friend was the son of a Democratic state senator from Queens. He would brag about how Geraldine Ferraro had been over for dinner the night before. I’d mostly just tell him I wanted Reagan to win, he’d insist Mondale would win and that would be about it. Not living in Ohio, we never discussed Jerry Springer or his hooker.

4. Totally agree with Scoopy on this. By not pleading guilty, the collateral damage he caused our country Smollett should be locked up for good. Sure other individual crimes may be more horrific on a small scale but he has affected thousands, Not only for the wasted man hours and resources that could have been used helping others in need. But continues to pour flames on the fires of race relations that are already burring out of control in a time we need the country to come together.
   Sure not at “crimes against humanity” level I know but it still has affected our country and continues to. By not pleading guilty there are still the blind idiots out there are using his case as more proof that a black man can’t get a fair trial in America and blaming the mostly white jury for convicting and innocent black man. If he would have just plead guilty and paid the fines this would have gone away. But by choosing lie and continues costing our country in many ways. This isn’t over. Last I read he was going to appeal this injustice.

   1. Collateral damage lol the U.S. was totally fucked wayyy before Smollett. Catch a frickin’ clue …

5. Con lib nonsense aside, justice in America is a frickin’ joke and has been since day 1 rich folk having the $$$ to beat any rap notwithstanding. OJ found not guilty more because he was a celebrity imo and the irony of moving the trial from Brentwood to downtown L.A. when OJ spent yrs trying to be more white than black lol. Digressing.

   Indeed, “they” had John DeLorean on tape and he beat the rap. 😮

   Read yesterday Smollett is likely to get fined and community service so sorry UncleScoopy welcome to justice in America.

   btw, currently the U.S. has 250k unsolved murders. Yielding back the balance of my time …

6. His thought process right from the inception of the scheme was, “I’m black & gay. Even if this phony crime fails, blacks & gays will still stand behind me. Worst case scenario, I get probation for lying, and massive publicity. Worth the risk.” And that will probably end up true. Look for him on talk shows next year, yukking it up with everybody who’ll have him on. He’ll either: 1) take the militant BLM route, continuing on with his lies & pretending like he was mistreated by the justice system, or 2) fess up and come up with some ludicrous cultural reason why he pulled this stunt. “To show everyone that…” blah blah blah.

7. “Earlier this week, BLM backed Smollett during his criminal trial. After the verdict was announced late Thursday, BLM Los Angeles leader Melina Abdullah told TMZ that its stance hasn’t changed and Smollett still has the organization’s full support.
   Representatives for BLM did not immediately respond Friday to The Times’ request for comment.
   “As abolitionists, we approach situations of injustice with love and align ourselves with our community. Because we got us,” BLM said in a Tuesday statement. “So let’s be clear: we love everybody in our community. It’s not about a trial or a verdict decided in a white supremacist charade, it’s about how we treat our community when corrupt systems are working to devalue their lives. In an abolitionist society, this trial would not be taking place, and our communities would not have to fight and suffer to prove our worth.”
   The organization also blasted the Chicago Police Department, which it said has “has proven time and again to have no respect for our lives.”
   “In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department (CPD) over Jussie Smollett, a Black man who has been courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom,” Tuesday’s statement continued. “Black Lives Matter will continue to work towards the abolition of police and every unjust system. We will continue to love and protect one another, and wrap our arms around those who do the work to usher in Black freedom and, by extension, freedom for everyone else.”
   LA Times
   This is as about a big a pile of horseshit as anything as you could get out of the Greene-Boebert-ChildCawthorn crowd. And too typical of BLM the organization as opposed to Black Lives Matter, the concept.

   1. American Tribalism. Never admit your side did something wrong.

      A sad commentary on our society is the fact that the closest thing we have to an objective, rational look at the world is provided by South Park, a no-budget TV cartoon.

8. He had a small but memorable part on an entirely OK TV show. If he’d just got back to work, he might have been rich and famous (for a good reason) by now. Pissed away a talent and an opportunity most people would be glad to have.

9. Awesome article Scoop, now do one about the political left and Kyle Rittenhouse. Same premise and a lot of the same people!

   1. I kinda put Rittenhouse in a different category. It is true that he was legally not guilty and the jury made the right decision. It is also true that the left showed a lot of hypocrisy because they didn’t seem as enthusiastic about the sacred “rule of law” when it didn’t produce the outcome they wanted.

      But in his case, there is an “on the other hand.” Although Rittenhouse was LEGALLY not guilty, it was still fair to condemn his actions. We really don’t want children wandering from town to town armed with military grade weapons. We would like to be living in America, not Somalia.

      1. I really appreciate your fair look at both cases and calling out the hypocrisy that the media has been spewing specific to these cases

      2. Just because a defendant is properly found not guilty in no way means their actions were admiral or even that they weren’t truly awful. It just means they hadn’t broken the law, or at least not the law they were charged with. Rittenhouse was properly found not guilty because there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that, at the time of each shooting, he didn’t have a reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury. But Rittenhouse did an incredibly stupid thing. He was not some kind of hero. In fact he shot 2 men (and killed one) heroically trying to disarm what they thought was an active shooter. Something, that many people might not have understood is that when considering self defense the jury has to put themselves in the shoes of the defendant, not the victim. There are two questions they have to answer. First, did the defendant honestly fear death or serious bodily injury? Second, was that belief reasonable? If the answer to at least one of those questions isn’t “no” beyond a reasonable doubt, they must acquit.

         Because misunderstanding a situation can happen, it’s possible for both parties in a confrontation to have valid self defense claims. I think that was the case with Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. Let me say up front that Zimmerman is an asshole that totally created the situation that caused him to kill Trayvon. But nothing he did up to the shooting was against the law. It was not illegal to follow someone, even when a 911 operator told him repeatedly not to do so. Zimmerman’s story was that Trayvon turned on him, attacked him, and was banging his head against the pavement. He said he feared that Trayvon would get his gun. The physical evidence supported Zimmerman’s version of events. The fact that it was completely understandable why Trayvon might have feared the man following him doesn’t enter into the calculation. It’s quite possible that if the police arrived before Trayvon was shot and he was put on trial for attacking Zimmerman, Trayvon might have been acquitted on self defense.

         In reality, they would either decline to prosecute because they realized Zimmerman provoked the fight or more likely it would probably be sent to some diversionary program where the charge would be dropped if he didn’t commit any new crimes inside of a year. That’s what happened with my charges. Have I ever written here about my experience as a defendant in the Criminal Justice System? You might think, I’m a kid from the Bronx, I probably had a run in with the cops somewhere. The where might be unexpected. I certainly didn’t expect it. It was a week after my law school graduation and I was at the beach in Norwalk, CT with my girlfriend. A woman pulled her car right up to the beach and started playing her music really loudly. My girlfriend asked her to turn it down and words were exchanged. I went over and put my hands on my GF’s shoulders and said “let’s just go.” The woman said “that’s right, you go you fat bitch!” and my GF replied, “me fat, look at the rolls hanging out over your skirt.” The woman attacked my GF striking her over my shoulder and giving her a black eye. I turned around and pushed her back such that you might say I broke up a fight. My GF wanted to call the police so we did. The cop got our version of what happened and then got hers. Because my GF had a black eye, they charged her with assault. Because the woman said I shoved her, I was charged with Breach of the Peace. We both got desk appearance tickets.

         As I had been studying for the Bar Exam, I knew that I would be not guilty via a “Defense of Another” defense. That’s basically self defense, but you are protecting someone else. I believe the force I used was reasonable under the circumstances. But the DA was a jerk and wouldn’t drop the charges. I was studying for the Bar and didn’t have a job yet. So I decided I would get a public defender and actually make them give me a jury trial. I figured I could call character witnesses and make the trial last days. The public defender’s office was next to the DAs so I went in there and explained my case. “So you hit your girlfriend” “NO, I didn’t hit my girlfriend, someone else hit my girlfriend.” The woman that hit my girlfriend had signed in before me, meaning they would have a conflict meaning they would have to hire a private attorney for me. I was fine with that because I found the whole situation equal parts infuriating and hilarious. But because the judge kept adjourning the case for a month at a time without even letting me plead, it dragged until I had found a job. When they offered to resolve everything by mediation I agreed because I didn’t want to ask the firm that just hired me to give me time off for my trial. The woman agreed to apologize to my GF (relayed by the mediator, not in person) and both charges were Nolle Pros With Leave to Amend. I don’t know how the other woman did, but I managed to not get arrested for a year so my record was wiped. But it was still a major pain in the ass when I wanted to be admitted to the NY Bar. I had to drive up to CT to get documentation of the “diversionary program” I had entered and needed a full single spaced legal sized sheet of paper with my explanation of what happened. In other words, in much more detail than I have written here. I know, hard to believe, right?

         I didn’t even give my now ex-girlfriend’s first name because she made herself famous some years back with some really stupid tweets that got a lot of publicity, especially in conservative media. We had been broken up for over a decade and I remember reading an article about the tweets but not realizing who she was at first. It was one of those “that name is familiar…Oh My God!” reactions. Well my family didn’t like her anyway. Though we had been dating for two years before anyone told me that. I suppose I could have referred to her as EBMFH. Evil Bitch Monster From Hell was my sister’s nickname for her. Of course she had lots of good qualities or we wouldn’t have been together so long.

   2. How about one on the political right and Josh Duggar instead?

      I wonder if Josh runs a pizza joint somewhere.

10. He’s a sociopath. Plain and simple. Look at what he tried, in the Era of George Floyd.

    He has zero going on inside. Nothing. Plead not guilty? Why not? Might work. Morality is no object.

11. Smollett is peanuts compared to the criminals that go unpunished in the US daily.

    1. So your still defending him in some way?

    2. That’s kinda my point. Law enforcement would have more time to catch real criminals if they didn’t have to waste times on frauds like Jussie. In this respect, it makes him pretty much as bad as they are.

       1. No…the mega criminals are above the law in the US.

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