Jussie Smollet that's the actor best known for his work on Fox's empire.
He received his sentence yesterday for lying to police,
making up the idea that there was a hate crime in January 2019.
Cook County Judge in Illinois gave him a six figure restitution probation and
a fine in addition to 150 days in jail.
And that jail sentences exactly what his family, friends and
advocates did not want for him.
And there are things about this case that you may remember.
So Smollett had claimed that two assailants targeted him on a frigid
Chicago night for being black and gay, beat him,
put a rope around his neck, splashed him with a liquid chemical.
Which I believe is bleach and told him this is MAGA country referring
to former President Trump's campaign slogan of Make America Great Again.
The charges against the actor, they were initially dismissed, but
Smollett was indicted again last year.
And he was subsequently found guilty in December on five felony
counts of disorderly conduct for lying to police.
I know you are there in Chicago Raven.
What is it that really stood out to you about this case?
>> Well, I think one of the things that really stood out to me was first,
the prosecutor's argument that he deserves a really high
sentencing because he hurt actual victims of hate crimes, which is true.
Because we see all these charges repeatedly over and
over point to Jessie Smollett and say there's no real racism.
I know that because he had to invent this.
And so that part was true but the idea that that justifies giving him a very high
sentence to me is absurd just almost all the theories of punishment.
But the cruelty almost with which he was sentenced by
the judge stood out to me primarily putting him in Cook County jail.
As a high profile celebrity who is also a gay man and
it's just no one wanna go to 26th and Cal as it's known here in Chicago.
It has a horrible reputation but someone who is such a high
profile figure who had such a highly publicized case.
It just seems cruel and unsafe.
So watching him in court say that if I die I didn't kill myself.
It makes sense that he would be horrifically frightened to go to 26th and
cal just given the reputation it has and knowing that he is gonna be a target.
Also because he has the ire of law enforcement, and I'm sorry,
I don't think that if he's in danger in prison that the COS
are gonna be quick to respond to it, I really don't.
>> Yeah, there's a lot of nuance here and
Adrian's gonna get into a little bit of that in a second too.
But I think you should go to prison.
And I don't think this was overly harsh.
Now that should be separated from, well then why don't,
white collar criminals go to that same prison?
No, that's super frustrating.
It is fair to point out that disparity and
I would send every white collar criminal to that prison.
I don't know why they get a special privilege.
And here's a black guy who is a celebrity and famous and
normally would go to a country club prison, but it's not and
is he more in danger, especially because the cops hate them?
And the potentially that could mean that the ceos are not gonna help him yes.
Our prisons national nightmare to begin with yes.
None of them are safe, it's absurd.
They allow rampant violence and sexual assault, totally madness.
So that I view that as a separate issue.
But he did do it guys.
I know it's politicized right?
They had originally dropped the charges, but
the reason that they brought him back is because it was a high profile case.
And the fact that he was a celebrity heard him which is unusual,
normally being a celebrity helps you because you're wealthy etc.
But there's a reason for that.
The reason is you wanna set an example and
you wanna set an example when people are paying attention.
So if somebody makes up an awful crime against them, etc, and
nobody sees it, it has less impact in terms of deterrence etc.
Then if it's a high profile one, that's why they should have gone
after the bankers in 2000 and eight and they were cowards and they didn't.
And so I get, the despair treatment at times, but
the jury clearly thought he did this crime, they convicted him.
And it is a crime and it is problematic and
it I think it hurts all minorities.
And so I'm not sure that I think it's that unjust.
Okay, Adrian, but give me more thoughts, nuanced etc.
>> Okay, so everybody always says,
it hurts people who are victims of true hate crimes.
I absolutely disagree.
I say that in part because the system wasn't here for us to begin with,
the system discounted us to begin with.
Just like sexual assault survivors and people who come forward about rape,
it ain't gonna change because like what 2% of rapes are false made up.
Just because of that two to 5% doesn't change how the system responds to us and
it won't change how the system responds to hate crimes when it comes to justice small
making this up.
Also there's something gonna with Jessie Smollett,
the fact that he's either putting on the best performance of his life or
he has something scrambled and it's all messed up.
But that man will not drop his innocence.
And it is very strange and I just am very concerned for his safety.
I do see the fact that there's so much disparity here in terms of how individuals
are treated for this particular crime, this disorderly conduct,
the general, sentence would be probation.
So why are we straying from that?
I get that the judge felt that there were aggravating factors.
I get that.
But what would you do if he was white and
I do not believe that the judge would have rendered the exact same sentence.
And I'm afraid that this could be a death sentence for him and gonna this facility
that they're gonna change every aspect of his being to the point where I don't know
if he's gonna make it out and he has a target on his back.
And I think that is the biggest problem that everyone in that courtroom knew that
and they still said go ahead and go that direction.
As the lying to police isn't something that so
many people have done particularly up in Chicago,
where they have the biggest corruption problem known to man and have for decades.
It just, it speaks to the fact that the system will often punish you for
lying about a hate crime more than they'll punish you for committing one.
And I am so incredibly tired of that.
But something that was interesting to see is essentially how Jussie Smollett had so
much support at the hearing reverend Jesse Jackson submitted a letter
in favor of him.
Actor, Samuel L Jackson as well.
Alfre Woodard actor and even the Illinois innocence project and
Black Lives Matter submitted letters in his favor,
pleading not to send him to prison because they know exactly what will happen to him.
They all urged the judge to reconsider and also so did his council immediately
after it was announced that he was gonna prison for 100 and 50 days.
There was also many legal experts interviewed in the lead-up to smollett's
sentencing predicted he'd served no jail time.
The amount of attention that Smollett's case commanded orchestrated at least
somewhat openly by Smollett who appeared on Good Morning America soon after
the attack.
He alleged before he was hit with felony charges for his alleged hoax should not be
confused with its severity, which is largely theoretical and opaque.
But instead of going with a more lenient sentence, a judge monologue Smollett for
around 40 minutes at the end of a nearly six hour hearing.
Judge James Linn scolded Smollett calling him profoundly arrogant and
selfish charlatan pretending to be a victim of a hate crime and
accusing him of throwing a national pity party for yourself.
The judge said Smollett had stolen resources from legitimate cases,
creating a heater that demanded precedence over other unsolved crimes.
Linn also delivered his own theory as to why Smollett may have hatched his scheme.
The only thing I can find is you really crave the attention and you really wanted
to get the attention that you were so invested in issues of social justice.
You knew this was a country that was slowly trying to heal past injustices and
current injustices 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.
I will say that interestingly enough, it shows you the judges completely
disconnected with our society if he thought that they were healing wounds.
This was December 2019 before George Floyd.
So, the fact that everything that came out as a response to that will tell
you that we were bubbling over there were no healing scabs.
But we know that on his show this morning, Charlemagne,
the God pointed out the double standard in the sentencing watch this.
>> All right, well, he was sentenced to 150 days in jail and 30 months probation.
>> That is wild that he got more time than people who raided
the capitol building on like six months is wild.
>> Like I feel like the fine could have been enough.
But once again, like I always tell you on this radio,
I cannot tell somebody how to react to my actions.
I can't pick and choose.
The consequences, but
I think it's very wild that he got more time than people on January 6th.
>> I have said enough, so I will tee it up to you all junk.
>> Yeah, I'm curious Raven, his point of view to here, and you guys as well.
The audience is split on this, but mainly on Adrian side, Tina said,
I've never disagreed with Jake more telling Adrian.
Warlock said, that they agree more with me because,
the idea here that the he's saying the same thing that I did,
which is, should you also punish white criminals in the same way,
of course but was it a crime?
Yes, definitely was smell it, arrogant and he did it to gain more fame.
Yes, I find that sickening.
And he's willing to throw all of us under a bus.
So, I hear what you're saying, Adrian, and I know every, a lot of different
communities react in different ways and no one speaks for any one community.
But, as a Muslim we've had our share of hate crimes too, and
I don't appreciate some jackass who's already incredibly wealthy, saying, well,
I'd like to be a little bit wealthier and I'd like to be a little bit more famous.
So I'm gonna make something up and I'm gonna make some percentage of people
disbelieve innocent people who get this kinda treatment.
So, and make you see the Silver Dragon makes a good point about a point
actually that was made on indisputable.
I agree that smell, it deserves to be punished.
He said as Dr. Richie pointed out, Amy Cooper,
the Central Park Karen who also made a false assault call, was never charged.
That actually put on with her second call, pretending to sound terrified,
should have had her arrested.
See, that's a great point by Rashad.
That our member there is recounting.
It's an absolute outrage that she was not charged, just like Smollett,
it was a fake call to the police and that actually endangered someone's life.
She should have gotten a year in prison.
But that doesn't mean, in my opinion, the Smollett should be let off.
He was okay.
So can a celebrity who's gonna be endangered because of a certain situation,
do anything they want because they'll be endangered, but
can we fix our goddamn prisons?
So people stop getting assaulted there.
So there's a lot of injustice in this country.
But in my opinion, as you can tell, I don't think any of that means that in
this case, that he shouldn't have gone to prison at all Raven our thoughts.
>> Yeah, I also just wanna talk a little bit about one other sorta motivating
factor in his sentencing, that the judge kept referencing which
was the amount of money that the police had spent investigating his case.
And the amount of money that this trial was a cost to the judicial system.
It really seems to me, like the judge was very angry at him for
wasting all this money.
And that sorta played into his decision to sentence him, very highly,
which to me is someone who lives in Chicago is hilarious considering how much
absolute waste of the Chicago Police Department has every single year.
The massive amounts of money that CPD has to pay out for
abusing civilians here and all of their heinous crimes.
And then also, I know Jake,
you mentioned deterrence as a motivation to put them in prison.
And I agree that when it comes to like financial crimes and Wall Street and
all of their, what how they contributed to the financial crash,
I think that's a really valid argument.
I just don't necessarily see it being applicable here because are we trying to
deter other people from filing false hate crime reports?
It's not something that happens that often.
Are we trying to specifically deter Jussie Smollett from doing it in the future?
I really don't think that's an option for him.
His life has been kinda ruined by all of this.
I mean his career is over regardless of if they prosecuted him,
regardless of if they sentenced him.
I just don't, necessarily think that that's like a one to one comparison.
But I do think that the deterrence argument is particularly valid when it
comes to those types of Wall Street financial crimes.
>> I think go ahead.
>> I'd say for deterrence at least from my education on the issue that it's based on
the certainty, severity and swiftness of the punishment.
And the fact that is that they're trying to ensure the certainty here, but
it damn sure wasn't swift as we're two years out.
But the severity is there, but I don't think it'll work because white people
continue to watch individuals like them get away with making these falsified
reports and as black people, we always were trying to deter it anyways
because we figured we were screwed no matter what, whether we did it or not.
So it's like, who are you really trying to deter?
I really just see this and I'm not a fan at all of what Jesse smollett did and
generally I'm like punish people.
But again, I just see this sentence is entirely disproportionate and
I see this going down poorly.
>> Okay, last thing here guys, so
look, I'll give Mikey 33 43.
He's writing in our super chat in the last word here because this is the one
thing that really unifies us.
He wrote in all the parents who lie to weaponize the police against people of
color go to prison right?
So from my point of view, deterrence works, for
all the reasons if you do it the way that Adrian explained,
but also if it's applied evenly,
I think the line to the police is a very serious crime.
And by the way, right wingers lie to the police all the time they buy
there's a thing called swatting.
Well, they'll pretend a progressive is in the middle of a crime and
they'll send the swat team out there and it could get people killed,
by the way, no one ever gets charged on that ever.
So that's terrorism and they get let off completely on that.
All those Karens, all that lied and and Rashad is right,
especially the Central Park one.
It's a spectacular case.
That was very public like Smollett's case was.
You could have set an example there, but when you apply just a Smollett, but
you don't apply to the others.
Well, the lesson that you're sending is, remember at the end of the day,
you can still do whatever you want if you're a white right winger.
You could lie to the police ad nauseam, you could endanger people's lives be in
a way that is far more serious than what Smollett did and you'll get away with it.
Because in America if you're a white right winger,
this whole country is set up for your benefit.
And so it's disgusting that they get away with breaking the law over and over again.
So that's the thing that unifies us.
Whether we agree or disagree on,
whether Smollett should have gone to prison or not.
What we all definitely want is equal application of the law, and
we still haven't found in this country.