Jussie Smollett’s final act: How a hate crime hoax became a pitch for jury nullification

Many have marveled at the audacity of Smollett, who literally is asking jurors to discard not just every piece of material evidence, videotape and eyewitness testimony but to defy any semblance of logic in accepting his account of a racist attack by Trump supporters. That’s because he is not really trying to convince anyone he didn’t stage the attack with the help of Nigerian brothers Abimbola and Olabingo Osundairo. He is trying to get the jury to vote for him despite his guilt. It is called jury nullification, and this may be the most raw example of the practice in decades. Even if he can get a single holdout juror, he has a hung jury.