ATLANTA (CN) — Following nearly a full year of jury selection, the long-awaited trial against hip-hop artist Young Thug and five others accused of involvement in an Atlanta street gang kicked off Monday with even more setbacks as the rapper's defense team protested state prosecutor's opening presentation.
State prosecutors claim that Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffrey Williams, is the co-founder and leader of the Young Slime Life, or YSL, gang. The Grammy-winning rapper has been held in jail since May 2022 and has pleaded not guilty to his charges. He was denied bond multiple times by Fulton County Chief Judge Ural Glanville, who cited concerns over possible intimidation of witnesses ahead of trial.
For ten years, members of Young Slime Life, "dominated" and "sucked in the youth" of the Cleveland Avenue community of Atlanta, committing crimes such as armed robbery, vehicle and firearm theft, narcotic sales and even murder, Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love said during her opening statement.
Williams’ attorneys deny the state's allegations and maintain YSL is a reference to the name of his record label, Young Stoner Life.
A total of 28 people were charged in the sprawling racketeering indictment brought last year, including rapper Gunna, whose real name is Sergio Kitchens.
Kitchens was one of nine defendants who accepted plea deal offers by the state over the past year. Another 12 defendants had their cases severed for various reasons, and one defendant had his charges dropped after being convicted of two unrelated murders in Georgia and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Attorneys for the remaining six defendants quickly interrupted Love's opening statements when she presented a PowerPoint to the jury that was not shared with them before hand, causing significant delays in only the first day of trial.
Once Love's opening resumed, she cited various social media posts and messages from defendants, as well as several lines of Williams' rap lyrics that prosecutors claim pertain to various criminal acts committed on behalf of the purported gang.
"We didn't chase the lyrics to solve the murder, we chased the murder and found the lyrics," Love told the jury.
Despite the use of rap lyrics as evidence in court being largely criticized by First Amendment advocates as prejudicial, Glanville recently permitted prosecutors to present to the jury nearly 20 sets of rap lyrics they say were "admissions" of criminal activity committed by members of the purported gang. Prosecutors contend that certain lyrics and music video scenes glorified YSL’s alleged criminal activities, including fatal shootings of at least three rival gang members, selling drugs and violence against police and others.
Defense attorneys fought to have the lyrics excluded from evidence, arguing that the rap verses were protected forms of creative expression and subject to interpretation by the listener.
Maxwell Schardt, attorney for co-defendant Shannon Stillwell, told the jurors that his client previously sold marijuana and possessed a firearm, but has already pled guilty and served his time for those crimes.
"His motivation was to make money for him to live, to pay rent, to eat," said Schardt. "His decisions made ten years ago had nothing to do with YSL."
Schardt added that prosecutors have no forensic or ballistic evidence or eye witnesses of the 2015 fatal drive-by shooting of Donovan Thomas, a critical incident listed in the indictment. He said that prosecutors rely solely on the word of a man who was arrested on various pending charges nine months after the shooting, who told investigators he saw Stillwell and three other defendants in the car where the gunshots were fired from, but lied to them about his real name. The attorney also noted the "improbability" of someone spotting four individuals inside a high-speed car at night.
The prolonged build-up to opening arguments has made the case the longest criminal trial in Georgia history, with the actual trial expected to take at least six months. Prosecutors said they expect to call 400 witnesses to testify.
As most potential jurors were unable to dedicate at least six months of their lives to the trial, finding 12 fit trial jurors became a complicated process for the court, taking 10 months to complete. The selected jury panel is comprised of two people who are unemployed, a retired custodian, a former political consultant, two educators, a store manager, a government worker, a delivery driver, a telecommunications employee, a beauty advisor, a health clinic worker and an HR professional.
There are seven Black women on the jury, two Black men, two white women and one white man. The six alternates are comprised of four Black women, one Black man and one white man. All of the defendants are Black men.
Jurors were instructed by Glanville to not talk to anyone about the case or to view any media coverage of it.
The case is being prosecuted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is also pursuing racketeering charges against former President Donald Trump and several of his allies for attempting to overturn his defeat to President Biden in the 2020 election. Willis also prosecuted racketeering charges in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal case in 2014, which until now had been the state's longest criminal trial.
The trial will resume tomorrow morning, where opening statements from defense attorneys will continue and prosecutors will call their first witness to the stand.
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