“There is no room for politics in our court system,” defense attorney Nene Uchi said at a news conference shortly after the actor’s release. “No matter what you think of this case… the real question is, should black men go to prison for a fourth-degree crime?”
“This is a disgrace,” the lawyer added. Oche and other attorneys on the team who spoke on Wednesday criticized the judge who sentenced Smollett last week. Cook County Judge James Lane spoke to the actor for more than half an hour, criticizing his actions.
“The judge spent a long time disciplining my clients,” O’Shea said. “I’ve never seen that before.”
O’Shea said that during the past six days in prison, Smollett had eaten nothing but ice water.
Smollett’s defense file An emergency motion last week, claiming he would be subjected to “irreparable harm” if he served a sentence for convictions that could be overturned, adding that he would likely serve his prison term before completing his appeal.
The lawyers added that exposure to Covid-19 posed a serious risk because Smollett was immunocompromised.
The court agreed to the lawyers’ request, He reasoned that he “would not be able to decide on an immediate appeal before the defendant had served the full term of his prison sentence.”
In their response filed on Wednesday, prosecutors strongly disagreed with the defense’s reasoning, arguing that “there is no emergency calling for an exceptional mitigation” to delay Smollett’s sentence while he awaits his appeal.
“Mr. Smollett asserts that he is entitled to residency because he will likely serve his short prison sentence of 150 days before his appeal on the merits is decided,” part of the response read. “According to this logic, every defendant who has been sentenced to less than a few years in prison will automatically receive a stay pending appeal.”
Smollett had exploded in court last week
Smollett maintained his innocence under oath during his trial.
But during last week’s sentencing, Judge James Lynn told Smollett, “You are not a victim of a racist hate crime, you are not a victim of a homophobic crime. You are just a charlatan pretending to be a victim of a hate crime.”
The judge spoke for more than half an hour during the trial, telling the actor that while many people emphasized Smollett and his character and asked the judge for a reduced sentence, Smollett’s premeditation in the act he orchestrated was an “aggravating factor” in the case.
“You have a great record of real community service,” the judge said Thursday. “I am aware of the pleas for mercy, especially from the people in the arena.” But the judge eventually said that the act showed Smollett’s “dark side.”
After his sentence was announced, Smollett addressed the judge saying ‘I didn’t do this’ before he went to court and shouted that he was not suicidal, and that ‘if anything happened to me when I went there, I didn’t do it myself and you should all know it’ “.
On Friday, the actor was being held “in his own cell, which is monitored by the cell’s surveillance cameras and by an officer wearing a body camera and stationed at the entrance to the cell to ensure that Mr. Smollett is under direct observation.” The Cook County Sheriff’s Office said “at all times,” stressing that The actor was not held in solitary confinement.
Lawyer calls charges against the constitution
Webb said last week that he was “extraordinarily pleased” with Judge Lin’s ruling and that the judge’s comments showed that he “clearly understood … that this was a course of conduct deserving severe punishment.”
But during Wednesday night’s press conference, Auche, one of Smollett’s attorneys, called the proceedings in the case unconstitutional, as Smollett had already been charged, paid $10,000 and did community service.
“When I was indicted in this case at first, when this case was sued, when this case was judged, I wondered at every one of those steps whether Chicago had given up on the Union. Because in this country, you can’t punish a person twice “While everyone focused on the excitement surrounding this case, people did not focus on the constitutionality of the prosecution,” the attorney said.
