BOSTON (CN) — Rap lyrics that a defendant wrote four years before killing someone could be evidence that the death was “premeditated,” the Massachusetts Supreme Court seemed inclined to hold during oral arguments Monday.
The use of rap in criminal trials has become a hot-button issue as prosecutors increasingly try to use defendants’ lyrics to establish guilt — and defense lawyers argue that fake, anti-social personas and provocative exaggeration inherent to the genre don't prove anything about real life and inflame racial prejudice.
Some courts have held that rap lyrics written after a crime occurred could amount to a quasi-confession or that lyrics written before a crime occurred could be evidence of knowledge of certain facts, like drug lingo. But the Massachusetts court appeared willing to go even further and accept that violent lyrics written years earlier could show intent to commit a specific crime.
Defense attorney Elizabeth Billowitz pointed to case law: “In my research, I couldn’t find a single case [involving criminal intent] where the lyrics were written before the event, let alone years before,” she argued.
The justices seemed unimpressed.
“Before is much more relevant than afterwards in proving intent,” Justice Scott Kafker stated.
In this case, defendant Carlos Colina was convicted of first-degree murder after he killed a friend with a chokehold during a drunken argument and then sawed off his head and limbs and disposed of the remains in various duffel bags. Colina claimed he acted in self-defense after the friend punched him and threatened to kill him, and that he cut up the body and disposed of it because he didn’t think the police would believe that he didn’t intend to kill anyone.
At trial, prosecutors played two rap songs Colina recorded four years earlier. One contained the lyrics, “I decapitated and dismembered his arms and legs just to get a woody,” although the context was a story of revenge against a federal agent who tried to shoot the protagonist.
Another song contained the line, “Like Kurt Angle, I strangle you in a chokehold.” (Kurt Angle is a professional wrestler known for his chokeholds.)
The lyrics were the basis for the prosecution’s argument that the killing was intentional. A state trooper, who didn’t claim to have any expertise in rap, said he interpreted the lyrics as “a confession” and a fantasy Colina “made come true” years later.
In 2022 California adopted a law designed to curtail the use of rap lyrics and other artistic expression in criminal trials, but Massachusetts doesn’t have a similar law.
The lyrics in this case were “pretty spot-on,” Justice Dalila Wendlandt said. “The saw and the chokehold — isn’t that what happened? … I’m struggling to find an abuse of discretion in allowing this in.”
Justice Serge Georges agreed. “In that rap song, they talk about, ‘I’m cutting your head off, I’m dismembering you,’ and that’s exactly what happened to this poor man.”
“Decapitation and dismemberment … that’s pretty close,” Kafker added.
Billowitz did her best to argue that rap lyrics pose a “unique risk of prejudice” and that the songs here amounted to a “fictional narrative” that didn’t have “unmistakable factual connections” to the case.
“Violence is ubiquitous in rap music,” she said. “Even decapitation is not unusual.”
But the justices appeared to think there were enough factual connections for the trial judge to have admitted the evidence, especially since the judge gave jurors instructions limiting the purposes for which they could consider it.
Regarding intent, Georges asked, “How is it not relevant?”
“This wrestler who does this to people," Kafker chimed in, "doesn’t that make this relevant?”
However, Colina might get a new trial anyway. The justices seemed to think that, since he claimed the victim attacked him first, the jury should have been given the option of finding him guilty only of manslaughter.
“Isn’t this a classic case of sudden provocation?” Kafker asked Emily Walsh, the assistant district attorney.
The judge suggested it may h ave been appropriate to instruct the jury on the lesser charge.
“I have to go back and read all these drunken-brawl cases we’ve got," Kafker said, "but don’t we usually require an instruction?”
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