The Georgia Supreme Court may have set a legal precedent over the use of rap music in court. In a 7-2 ruling, the highest court in the state overturned the murder conviction of Morgan Baker.
In 2019, Baker was convicted after prosecutors showed a rap video where he waved a gun. They were seeking to show that Baker had a history of violence by using the rap video as evidence.
However, Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren ruled that the use of the rap video was prejudicial to Baker.
“The rap music video was highly prejudicial,” Justice Warren wrote. “It allowed the State to introduce impermissible propensity evidence by portraying Baker as a threatening gunman, and the prosecutor severely exacerbated the video’s prejudicial impact by emphasizing that it showed Baker’s predisposition to gun violence.”
Baker was convicted of the 2019 murder of Tamarco Head, a security guard at Club Boss. Baker was a manager for a rapper named NoCap when an altercation broke out. Head was shot, but Baker denied having a gun that night.
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors did not present “compelling” evidence against Baker and that the use of the rap video contributed to the guilty verdict.
The ruling could have a major impact on the YSL RICO case which centers around Atlanta rapper Young Thug.
In the YSL case, Judge Ural Glanville ruled that 17 different lyrics can be used as evidence against rapper Young Thug (whose legal name is Jeffrey Williams) and his co-defendants. Thus far, the jury has seen one music video and multiple images of alleged gang signs and weapons that were posted on social media.
Young Thug’s lawyer Brian Steel said that the use of rap lyrics in court is a violation of the First Amendment. “They are targeting the right to free speech, and that’s wrong. They are saying that just because he his singing about it, he is now part of a crime.”
And Doug Weinstein, the attorney for defendant Yak Gotti, said that rap music is the only genre in entertainment that allows rap lyrics to be used as evidence in legal cases.
“We are asking essentially for the same thing that the state is, use the Georgia law,” Weinstein said. “As Professor Dennis at the University of Georgia says, ‘rap is the only fictional art form treated this way. No other musical genre and no other art is used in the same way and to the same extent. And there’s so many examples of that. Look at actor Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey is accused of felony sexual assault in 2018. He’s playing reprehensible characters in movies repeatedly in TV shows. None of that is dragged in. When it comes to rap, we’re ignoring the art. There is art here and the art has to be separated from the real life.”
Young Thug’s lawyers filed a motion in court stating that rap lyrics are protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the U.S. Constitution, and the Georgia Constitution in terms of music, freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
They also added that there are racial implications to using rap lyrics as evidence in a criminal trial claiming that it is “racist and discriminatory because the jury will be so poisoned and prejudiced” by the artistic material. In turn, the lawyers said the use of rap lyrics would be “unlawful character assassination.”
However, Fulton County prosecutors claim that some lyrics are inspired by real events.
On the song “Slime S—,” the rap lyric “hundred rounds in a Tahoe” is a nod to the murder of Donovan Thomas Jr. in 2015, prosecutors claim.
The use of rap lyrics in legal cases could change the dynamics of hip-hop.
In August, Congressman Hank Johnson introduced a new proposal called the “Restoring Artistic Protections Act” or “RAP Act,” a proposal that would limit the use of lyrics as evidence in federal court.“The RAP Act creates a presumption that creative content is inadmissible until and unless the prosecution can establish certain facts,” Johnson said. “The RAP Act sets up a set of guidelines.”
Months before Glanville’s ruling the rap lyrics can be used in the YSL trial, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis spoke about the use of rap lyrics in court by saying, “I have some legal advice. Don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used or at least get out of my county.”
Incarcerated since May 2022, Young Thug was arrested along with fellow rapper Gunna and other members of YSL (Young Slime Life). They were charged under the RICO Act by Willis.
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