The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in one of Chicago’s most closely followed low-level felony cases when attorneys for Jussie Smollett appeared before the state’s highest court in Springfield seeking to overturn his convictions nearly three years after he was convicted of staging a fake hate crime.

Smollett also argued his legal team was improperly denied access to the government’s interviews of the prosecution’s star witnesses – the two brothers he’d allegedly paid to perpetrate the attack – and that he was improperly ordered to pay for police overtime as restitution.

The North Carolina law, along with legislation adopted by other states, recognizes research that shows coming to terms with child sexual abuse can take many years, with many survivors only able to come forward as adults.