Young Thug’s Trial Drama: Jurors’ Identities Exposed in Livestream Mishap
4 min read
WSB-TV
The livestream of Young Thug’s current trial in Georgia accidentally showed the jurors’ faces for a short moment. Young Thug is being tried for gang and racketeering charges.
The faces of the people deciding if Young Thug is guilty or not were accidentally shown on a live video during his trial. Young Thug is in court because he’s accused of being part of a gang and doing illegal activities. The trial started this week, and on Wednesday, a camera in the courtroom moved in a way that showed some jurors’ faces. This happened while the first expert witness, Mark Belknap, who is an investigator from the Atlanta Police Department, was speaking. Pictures of this mistake quickly spread on social media after it happened. The feed zoomed in on the wall for nearly an hour as the judge and attorneys seemed to depart the courtroom. When they came back Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural Glanville instructed the media to stop filming Belknap and rather record audio because of “some security issues” and “inadvertent recording” of several jurors in the front row.
Multiple jurors were accidentally filmed during the livestream of Young Thug’s RICO trial 😳‼️ pic.twitter.com/RUXj4pq4ob
— RapTV (@Rap) November 29, 2023
After the request to not show the jurors’ faces, the video, which comes from a shared source, started to only show different parts of the courtroom. It zoomed in on a water bottle in front of Belknap while he was talking. This trial is happening more than a year after Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, was formally accused along with more than a dozen other people. According to The Associated Press, the rapper has been accused of co-founding an aggressive criminal street gang called Young Slime Life (YSL) in 2012, which prosecutors claim is affiliated with the national Bloods gang. YSL is said to be involved in a number of crimes, including murders, shootings, and carjackings. Prosecutors claim that through his songs and social media posts, the Atlanta-based singer boosted the group. Glanville decided this Monday that prosecutors could use 17 sets of lyrics to establish their case as long as they showed the lyrics were relevant to the acts the rapper is accused of.
BREAKING: Judge Glanville appeared very angry and called all attorneys back in chambers. Working to get more information but murmurs about a mistrial. Stand by! #YoungThug #YSL
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) November 29, 2023
The Young Thug’s Trial Was Halted After The Identities Of The Jurors Were Revealed
After a video mistakenly showed the jury, Judge Ural Glanville has asked the media not to record the rest of Young Thug’s YSL Rico trial in Georgia. Before calling in the jurors, the judge addressed the court regarding “security issues” after an “inadvertent” tape of the jury had been released by sites like No Jumper & started to circulate online. He then inquired if the media would be cool with not recording in the future. “If you want to do the audio, you can,” he said. It’s uncertain whether or not the Law & Crime livestream will be permitted to continue. Glanville called the conference with solicitors on the third day of the trial, however, the reason for the meeting was first unclear. Meghann Cuniff, a legal affairs journalist, noted that news aggregator accounts claimed that certain individuals had identified jury members in the trial, which could lead to a security breach. Cuniff then announced that alternate jurors might replace the jurors whose identities had been compromised. Young Thug was charged with breaching the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations) Act in a 2022 indictment.
Judge Glanville stated that lyrics could be introduced as evidence just days before the trial began following a lengthy wait. Over 93,000 people signed a petition launched by 300 Entertainment’s Kevin Liles & Atlantic Records’ Julie Greenwald towards using artistic expression as evidence. “This isn’t merely about me or YSL,” Thug said in support of the petition in June 2022. “Music has always been a source of artistic expression for me; now I see that Black artists and rappers aren’t afforded the same freedom.” Please sign the Protect Black Art petition and continue to pray for our people. “I adore you all.” Thug’s attorney, Brian Steel, criticised the prosecution’s opening remarks as “intentional misconduct” that could lead to a mistrial on the first day of the trial. “You ordered the parties three weeks ago to share all of their displays & opening comments with the others so we don’t have to have these disruptions. “I did it,” Steel explained. “I was provided with four attachments by the state.” That was all they had. That’s all I’ve got.” His request was refused.
