Prosecutors announced Tuesday that they dropped all charges against the 'Empire' actor despite alleging that Smollett fabricated a street attack on himself, Cook County First Assistant State Attorney Joe Magats said in an interview with ABC Chicago station WLS. 'The traditional sense
While the two cases are completely different, the criminal case involving actor Jussie Smollett and the summary of the Mueller report into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election have raised questions about the definition of the term"exoneration."
Between the actor’s claim and the dropped charges, Magats addressed the confusion, making it clear during the interview with WLS that"this was not an exoneration." In both the Smollett and Trump situations, Browne-Marshall said, the term is being used in a more colloquial way. Michael Semanchik, managing attorney at the California Innocence Project, is familiar with such cases, having reviewed hundreds of wrongful conviction claims.
Since Trump never had any charges filed against him and Smollett did not go through the full criminal justice process -- including a trial where one conviction is initially rendered and then overturned, vacated -- their situations don't fit the traditional definition of"exonerated."
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