The judge overseeing the long-running racketeering and gang prosecution against Young Thug and others has been removed from the case after two defendants sought his recusal, citing a meeting the judge held with prosecutors and a state witness.
Ural Glanville, the Fulton county superior court chief judge, had put the case in Atlanta on hold two weeks ago to give another judge a chance to review the defendants’ motions for recusal. Judge Rachel Krause on Monday granted those motions and ordered the clerk of court to assign the case to a different judge.
While not faulting Glanville for holding the meeting and saying she has “no doubt that Judge Glanville can and would continue presiding fairly over this matter”, Krause wrote that “the ‘necessity of preserving the public’s confidence in the judicial system’ weighs in favor of excusing Judge Glanville” from the case.
This ruling will surely cause more delays in a trial that has already dragged on for over a year. Jury selection began in January 2023 and took nearly 10 months. Opening statements were in November and the prosecution has been presenting its case since then, calling dozens of witnesses.
Young Thug, a Grammy winner whose given name is Jeffery Williams, was charged two years ago in a sprawling indictment accusing him and more than two dozen others of conspiring to violate Georgia’s anti-racketeering law. He also is charged with gang, drug and gun crimes and is standing trial with five of the others indicted with him.
Lawyers for Young Thug and co-defendant Deamonte Kendrick had filed motions seeking Glanville’s recusal. They said the judge held a meeting with prosecutors and prosecution witness Kenneth Copeland at which defendants and defense attorneys were not present. The defense attorneys argued the meeting was “improper” and that the judge and prosecutors had tried to pressure the witness to testify.
Glanville maintained that the meeting was proper and argued that no one gained a tactical advantage as a result.
The office of Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, which is prosecuting the case, had argued there was no need for Glanville to be recused.
“While I respect Chief Judge Glanville and his service to this community and the country, he simply became biased over the course of this case,” Kendrick’s lawyer, Doug Weinstein, said in an email.
Young Thug has been wildly successful since he began rapping as a teenager and he serves as CEO of his own record label, Young Stoner Life, or YSL. A compilation album, Slime Language 2, rose to No 1 on the charts in April 2021.
But prosecutors say YSL also stands for Young Slime Life, which they allege is an Atlanta-based violent street gang affiliated with the national Bloods gang and founded by Young Thug and two others in 2012.
Prosecutors say people named in the indictment are responsible for violent crimes – including killings, shootings and carjackings – to collect money for the gang, burnish its reputation and expand its power and territory.
Brian Steel, a lawyer for Young Thug, acknowledged during his opening statement that his client’s songs mention violent acts, including killings, but he said those are just artistic expressions drawn from his rough childhood and not a chronicle of his own activities.
Source: theguardian.com
