The new judge overseeing rapper Young Thug’s racketeering and gang conspiracy trial in Atlanta held her first hearing in the problem-plagued proceeding Friday and signaled she plans to enforce order over what has become the longest criminal trial in Georgia’s state history.
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Fulton County Judge Paige Reese Whitaker took the reins of the now 18-month trial after Judge Ural Glanville was recused from the case on July 15 amid controversy over the way he handled a secret meeting with prosecutors and a key state witness that excluded the defense.
“I want to be moving forward efficiently and expeditiously,” Judge Whitaker said at the morning hearing attended by the lawyers for the six co-defendants, including Young Thug, who are the first to face a jury under the state’s sprawling RICO indictment handed down in 2022. The judge admitted she was “parachuting in” without having followed the case, so she asked all parties to catch her up on pending motions before the jury is expected to return on Aug. 5. Marking a new era in the high-profile case, she outlawed the use of AirPods and eating during trial and said she hopes to impose a schedule that starts promptly at 8:45 a.m. and runs until 6 p.m. each, though Fridays might end earlier.
Appearing somewhat bewildered by the length of the trial so far, Judge Whitaker asked for “realistic” lists of witnesses still expected to testify. Prosecutors, who gave their opening statements last November , so far have called at least 75 people to the witness stand. It’s a staggering number for any trial but not even half of the names on the state’s whittled-down list. On Friday, Judge Whitaker made it clear she planned to scrutinize the lists for wasteful overlap. “This case has been going on for a really long time,” she said. “There is a rule that lets me exclude cumulative evidence, and I might end up using that.”
The judge then addressed the elephant in the room. “It definitely has appeared that there have been times that tempers have flared a whole lot, and that people have been maybe less than professional,” Whitaker said, adding that she hoped the weeks-long pause initiated by Judge Glanville back on July 1, when he agreed to let another judge rule on his recusal, had given everyone a “breather.” “Everybody has been absolutely wonderful here today, but I would like for us to maintain a degree of decorum and dignity and professionalism that is what is expected of all of us as members of the bar,” Whitaker said. “I’m here to give everybody a fair trial, a fair shake, and follow the law.”
Judge Whitaker ordered the parties to return on July 30 to begin sorting through pending motions, including a motion filed by Steel and Adams late Thursday asking for the disqualification of the two Fulton County prosecutors – Chief Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love and Deputy District Attorney Simone Hylton – who were present during the secret June 10 meeting that became the driving force behind Judge Glanville’s recusal.
Young Thug’s lawyers Brian Steel and Keith Adams have called the meeting “unethical” and said Glanville erred when he failed to immediately release the meeting transcript and instead held Steel in contempt for not revealing how he heard about the gathering.
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In their new four-page motion obtained by Rolling Stone , Steel and Adams say Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, is “innocent of all crimes” in the indictment and has a constitutional right to due process and a fair trial. They argue that Love and Hylton violated those rights when they participated in the secret meeting with states witness Kenneth Copeland. They argue Love and Hylton “knowingly made false and misleading assertions to Mr. Copeland” and “provided legally incorrect information to Mr. Copeland in order to persuade Mr. Copeland to testify against Mr. Williams.”
Love and Hylton did not respond for a request for comment. They’re expected to file a reply brief next week ahead of the July 30 hearing. During Friday’s hearing, which was streamed live by Law&Crime , Judge Whitaker said she didn’t want to hear any argument until everyone had a chance to review everything and respond. She also asked the defense lawyers to put in writing their belief that under Georgia case law, the trial must go back to June 12 – the day the first recusal motion against Judge Glanville was made – and restart there.
Speaking at a podium Friday, Steel informed the court that Copeland continued testifying over four separate dates after the recusal motion, with jurors taking notes that might have to be confiscated.
Speaking to Rolling Stone earlier this month, defense lawyer Douglas Weinstein, who represents Williams’ co-defendant and fellow rapper Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, said the need to rewind the trial back to June 12 appears problematic. He said it was possible he’d file a mistrial motion over the issue that would seek to permanently end the case. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse, but if we ask for a mistrial, it’s because we were goaded into that through the actions of the prosecution as well as the judge, and given that goading, double jeopardy should attach and Mr. Kendrick should not be retried,” Weinstein told Rolling Stone .
Williams, 32, has pleaded not guilty in the case. According to prosecutors, he acted as the head of a Bloods-affiliated gang called Young Slime Life (YSL) that formed in 2012 and consolidated power in south Atlanta though alleged crimes including armed robberies, carjackings, illegal narcotic sales, shootings, and at least three homicides.
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