What Went Down At The Young Thug Trial?
We've written before about the longest trial in U.S. history as well as the case that was retried the most times. While they can be dull, trials are a natural source of drama. Even fairly sedate trials can be weird and unpredictable from time to time, and I have a soft spot for reading about cases that went truly off the rails.
One of the wildest trials to go down in the past several years was the YSL Georgia RICO trial that took place in Atlanta from 2023 to 2024. The trial is best known because it involved Grammy award-winning rapper Jeffrey “Young Thug” Williams. It made some headlines at the time, but was hardly front page material in most of the country. And that’s a shame, because if you haven't followed the case, you should. The number of totally insane occurrences during the trial was completely off the charts.
The basic premise of the case was that 28 individuals, including Young Thug, were members of an Atlanta based gang called Young Slime Life or YSL. [1] Georgia prosecutors filed a 56 count indictment against the alleged gang members charging them with everything from murder or assault with a deadly weapon to more prosaic offenses like possession of marijuana or receipt of stolen property. Because prosecutors were proceeding under the Georgia RICO statute, they sought to lump all of the criminal conduct and all of the defendants together in a single mass legal action.
What follows is a necessarily incomplete list of the insane things that happened in the course of the YSL trial.
1. Length
Let's start with just how long this trial lasted. It's a rare trial that goes more than a few weeks and even trials as long as two or three months are quite exceptional. The YSL trial lasted longer than a year, beginning on November 27, 2023 and not wrapping up until December 3, 2024. But even this drastically understates the length of the proceedings. Jury selection began in January of 2023 and didn't finish until November. The case involved ten months of voir dire, which even by itself would itself rank among the longest trials in history. [2]
The sheer length of these proceedings was a huge problem for everyone involved. One juror was excused three months into the trial because she moved out of the jurisdiction. But you can't really blame her, as she gave the court six months’ notice of the move, informing the Georgia authorities during jury selection. Prosecutors also suspected that another potential juror didn't live in the jurisdiction and apparently surveilled him for over a month to try to get him excused.
Defense attorneys appointed by the Georgia Public Defender Council were initially told that they would only receive $15,000 for what would ultimately be almost two years of full-time legal work – drastically less than minimum wage. One attorney commented to the media that he would have been better off working at Chick-fil-A.
2. Drugs in the Courtroom
Contraband was a huge issue in the case. A courthouse deputy was arrested after conspiring to smuggle prohibited items to a defendant. Shortly thereafter, a defense attorney was also arrested after trying to bring prescription drugs into the courthouse. And during jury selection one of the defendants managed to get himself additional charges by walking up to Co-Defendant Young Thug and handing him a Percocet in open court. [3]
But while this is all a little strange it hit a new level with the testimony of Adrian Bean, a witness called by prosecutors to substantiate Young Thug’s gang ties. Bean paused the proceedings briefly during his testimony by declaring “Can I get a water or something? I'm so high right now y'all, I'm going to go to sleep on y'all now.”
And what's even more amazing than the witness admitting to being high during his testimony is that the court staff gave him a water and then he was allowed to continue testifying.
3. A Defense Lawyer’s Guide To Rap Music
One big problem that the defense lawyers faced was that several defendants, most prominently Young Thug, had released rap songs boasting about conduct that was pretty similar to what they were charged with. The defendants initially sought to exclude the songs, but after this motion was denied were forced to take a different approach. [4]
Long time readers will know that I am not a fan of trying to ask juries to interpret language in crazy ways to avoid bad documents. But a different ethic prevailed in the YSL trial. [5]. Counsel for Young Thug argued that his “thug” moniker was not some reference to street crime or low character but actually was an acronym for “truly humbled under God.” Similarly, defense counsel claimed that references to “pushing P” we're not about being a “player” as the phrase is commonly used but rather meant “pushing positivity” in the manner of some inspirational self-help mantra.
Even the YSL name, which prosecutors said stood for “young slime life” was disputed, as Young Thug’s counsel claimed that it merely referred to the Yves St. Laurent logo on designer pants.
4. Ex Parte Sanctions Double Recusal
On June 10, 2024, seven months into the trial, one of the defense attorneys learned that the judge, Ural Glanville, had a secret ex parte meeting with prosecutors and a key prosecution witness. [6] The witness was apparently reluctant to testify and the judge and prosecutor were seeking to determine why that was the case. None of the defense lawyers were told.
When asked about the meeting in court, Judge Glanville was not pleased that the defense had learned about it. Rather than explain why the meeting occurred, the judge demanded to know who had told them. When defense counsel refused to provide a source, the judge held him in summary contempt and ordered that he spend the next ten weekends in jail while continuing to try the case.
Defense counsel sought an emergency stay of the sanctions order from the appellate court (which was granted) and asked that Judge Glanville be removed from the case. The trial was halted for two weeks while the motion for recusal was addressed by a different judge. That judge ultimately concluded that the ex parte meeting was appropriate but that in light of what had happened afterward Judge Glanville should be removed from the case. The appellate court later overturned the sanctions determination as well.
The judge that the case was reassigned to then had to immediately recuse herself as well. Why? Her deputy was one of the many people who been arrested for smuggling contraband to the defendants.
5. Young Thug is Sentenced to Exile
In October of 2024, 11 months into the case, Young Thug pled guilty following plea negotiations with prosecutors. The sentence that he received was as weird as the trial itself. On one level, it seemed like a good deal. He was let out of jail immediately, as his custodial prison sentence was only for time already served. Not bad for a RICO case involving murder. But he also received 15 years of probation with some extremely bespoke terms. [7]
First, Young Thug is not allowed back in Atlanta except for very short periods of time under special conditions (e.g. to attend family funerals). Otherwise, he is literally banished from town. This is apparently constitutional (though it certainly doesn't feel constitutional). It also makes you wonder whether Georgia could just tell everyone on probation to just get out of the state.
Second, Young Thug is not allowed to promote gang violence. Depending on how you read this restriction, Young Thug arguably might not be permitted to perform his own songs. Again, technically constitutional, but definitely against the spirit of the First Amendment for the government to tell a singer what songs he can or can't perform. And it also makes you wonder what kind of crazy probation terms you could impose on someone. Could Georgia say “you're allowed out of jail but don't criticize the government?”
Third, Young Thug has a 20 year sentence that will automatically be imposed if he violates any of the conditions of his probation. This doesn't just include his exile from Atlanta, but also hundreds of hours of community service, random drug tests, and submission to random searches at any time without cause.
[1] Young Thug’s music label is also called YSL and purports to stand for Young Stoner Life. The fact that prosecutors claimed that Young Thug was a member of a street gang with the same acronym as his music label, but a totally different meaning does not even rank among the weird stuff in this case.
[2] https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-news/timeline-the-ysl-trial-in-atlanta/V7AYADEIVJBCPIW2354WAVEAAY/
[3] https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-news/timeline-the-ysl-trial-in-atlanta/V7AYADEIVJBCPIW2354WAVEAAY/
[4] https://www.billboard.com/lists/young-thug-ysl-rico-trial-timeline/may-11-2022-gunna-turns-himself-in/
[5] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/young-thug-trial-ysl-pushin-p-b2472193.html
[6] https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2024/06/13/bond-granted-no-jail-time-this-weekend-young-thug-attorney-brian-steel/
[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/arts/music/young-thug-probation.html
