Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Young Thug's Attorneys Want Judge Off Trial After 'Star Chamber' Meeting

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. How did you get that information supposedly from my chambers? Did somebody tell you? I'm not. You should have told me. You got five minutes. The lawyers for Jeffrey Williams, the rapper known as Young Thug, asked the judge to recuse himself and they asked for a mistrial following that heated hearing where attorney Brian Steele was held in contempt. I'm Anjanette Levy and this is Crime Fix. There have been a couple of developments in the contempt of court saga in Young Thug's case since

Starting point is 00:00:41 last week. You'll recall that Judge Ural Glanville held Brian Steele in contempt after he refused to reveal how he found out about an ex parte meeting with the state's star witness, Kenneth Lil Woody Copeland, after he was sworn in but then refused to testify. Mr. Steele, I am gonna hold you under, still hold you in summary criminal contempt. Now Brian Steele maintains that he did nothing wrong and that Judge Glanville shouldn't be presiding over his contempt matters or the trial for that matter because of the meeting held in chambers without the defense last Monday. It's called an ex parte hearing. Steele and his co-counsel Keith Adams called it a star chamber.

Starting point is 00:01:21 Meanwhile, the prosecution says the hearing was not improper. We certainly have the right to request ex parte communications. That's why we asked that the court reporter be present. This is a matter that the defendants did not have a right to be a part of, as this was a matter regarding a civil contempt that the court imposed upon a person for not obeying the court's directive. This is a law and crime legal alert. Google Incognito tracked users browsing data without their knowledge. Mass Tort Alliance, one of our legal sponsors, is helping users file for compensation due to Google users' privacy issues surrounding Google Incognito. If you've used Google Incognito anytime since 2016, you can start your claim in less than 10 questions. Just log on to incognitoclaims.com slash crimefix.

Starting point is 00:02:23 Judge Glanville was there for the meeting in his chambers along with prosecutors, some court staff, deputies, the witness, Lil Woody, and his lawyer. Lil Woody had been granted immunity to testify against Young Thug and his co-defendants, but Lil Woody asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege on the stand. And Mr. Copeland, good afternoon. Do you want to be here? Ma'am. Do you want to be here? Ma'am. Do you want to be here? I'm here. Okay. Are you going to let me ask you some questions? Okay. How old are you? Grown. Okay. What does grown mean? I'm an adult. Steele and his co-counsel filed this motion asking Judge Glanville to recuse himself over this entire affair because of the meeting held with Little Woody in Glanville's chambers last Monday. Steele and Adams wrote that Copeland, little Woody, made factual admissions during the meeting and

Starting point is 00:03:26 statements were made to the witness by the court and the prosecutors acting in concert about the amount of time Mr. Copeland could be held in custody on the contempt. The court denied undersigned counsel's request for the transcript of the ex parte meeting and denied the timely motion for mistrial based upon this improper and illegal ex parte meeting and denied the timely motion for mistrial based upon this improper and illegal ex parte meeting, which violated Mr. Williams's constitutional and statutory rights, including the right to due process, a fair trial, a fair tribunal, ethical prosecutors, and the right to be present at every critical stage of the proceeding under the Georgia Constitution. Steele and Adams also asked for a mistrial in

Starting point is 00:04:05 this new motion. Judge Glanville took up the matter first thing Tuesday morning and found the motion and affidavit were filed in a timely manner. But he said he's not recusing himself or granting a mistrial for that matter. The court finds that upon a review of Mr. Steele's motion and affidavit, as well as Mr. Banks' motion and affidavit, that both contain assertions, bare assertions and legal conclusions, which aren't sufficient for the court to grant your motion at this point in time and refer it to another judge for it to be heard.

Starting point is 00:04:50 So I'm going to deny the motion at this point in time. I invite you all to look at Baptiste versus the state. Just because adverse motions, adverse rulings have been made, doesn't mean that the court stops the trial. So I'm going to make that. I'll reduce both of the motions to recuse to an order. And I will file that so you can take whatever steps you need to necessarily after that. Brian Steele responded, putting Judge Glanville and the prosecution on notice. We assert not a bare assertion or a legal conclusion, but we make facts that we specifically adopt from the Honorable Attorney Winchester, Collins, Banks, Nove, and Mormons motion, where a person that they represent was in a meeting, ex parte, with the court and others and the prosecutor and a witness. And specifically, they wrote in a pleading and under parish,

Starting point is 00:06:13 which is P-A-R-R-I-S-H versus state, which is 362 Georgia Peel, 392 Division 1, 2022, the lawyers pleading on behalf of the client becomes a statement of the client. And they said that this court got involved with speaking with Mr. Copeland and assisted in Mr. Copeland testifying against Mr. Williams. So I've added this court to the witness list. I plan on calling the court as a witness in the trial. I added lawyers Hilton and Love from the district attorney's office to the witness list. And when I cross-examine Mr. Copeland when that day comes, I'm going to ask him about how much pressure, if any, the court put on him. And you're going to be the one instructing the jury. And I just can't imagine how that's

Starting point is 00:07:10 fair to Mr. Williams. So Brian Steele is saying he may call Judge Glanville as a witness, along with members of the prosecution team. Can you imagine? Steele's claiming Judge Glanville made himself a witness because of this hearing. So what about that transcript of the ex parte meeting? Brian Steele's been asking for it now for a week. I've read your affidavit, Mr. Steele, and I've consumed everything on it. And that doesn't change my ruling at this point in time, respectfully. I also, on the transcript, I like the recordings and the transcript. And I don't, I object to the court going through it and deleting. Because to me, the way I understand it, there is zero privilege. So I don't understand. I'm not going to, Mr. Cedars, I can't argue with you about anything

Starting point is 00:07:58 such as I've made my ruling. Okay. If you have some other basis to ask for the recordings or anything like that, you're going to have to put those in some other pleading. But at this point, I'm going to, Ms. Weaver's going to prepare the record. She does that and like I said earlier, the record should be

Starting point is 00:08:20 ready soon. And you all, as a defense group, will have the opportunity to take a look at that particular ex parte transcript that was done in chambers, less anything that the court considers to be privileged. And I'm going to let you do that before you examine Mr. Copeland. So you'll have everything that you have at that point in time. So now the defense attorneys will actually get the transcript of the meeting, at least a part of it. So I want to bring in two people to discuss this matter. The first is Judge Robert Peeler. He

Starting point is 00:08:58 sits on the Court of Common Pleas in Warren County, Ohio, and Daryl Cohen. He's an attorney based in Atlanta. So Judge Peeler, I'll start with you. Your thoughts on Brian Steele telling the judge or asking the judge to recuse himself and asking for a mistrial. The judge, of course, this morning denied that request. He said, I'm not going to recuse myself. But your thoughts on this whole mess? Well, my thoughts are based on, first of all, the fact that I am a judge in Ohio, and states differ somewhat as far as the ethical rules and also the legal legality of these matters. I can't really say specifically anything about this case or what's happening, other than in general, I can talk about process and procedure.

Starting point is 00:09:52 What are your thoughts on this whole issue of having the ex parte hearing without the defense present in which Kenneth Copeland was represented by counsel? And then, you know, there's this discussion about what will happen if he doesn't testify. He's told he could be held until the end of the trial, possibly even longer. And he's being told what could happen if he doesn't testify. And then the defense wasn't told about this hearing. So what are your thoughts on that? Well, any type of ex parte conference is always questionable. There are reasons that a judge can have an ex parte communication, but generally you want both attorneys present for that. And it would, in my opinion, as a judge, I would certainly want both attorneys there.

Starting point is 00:10:51 If there's some specific reason why an attorney would not be involved, such as if someone's life was in danger, then I would certainly want to make a good record of that. Because these are generally always reviewed. Different issues here. First of all, the legality of what's happening. Second, the contempt issue is a totally separate matter. So I would just want to be very careful about any ex parte conference or communication. I want to bring up the Judicial Code of Conduct for Georgia, and it's Conduct 2.9, and this is what the defense cites. It says, assuring fair hearings and averting ex parte communication. And it talks about when these things can be held. And it says, when circumstances

Starting point is 00:11:42 require ex parte communications and they're authorized for scheduling, administrative purposes, or emergencies that do not deal with substantive matters or issues on the merits, provided that A, the judge reasonably believes that no party will gain a procedural, substantive, or tactical advantage as a result of the ex parte communication, and B, the judge makes provision promptly to notify all other parties of the substance of the ex parte communication and gives the parties an opportunity to respond. So in court, Judge Glanville last week was furious that Brian Steele even found out about this because he said, this happened in my chambers. We had a court reporter there. Nothing was wrong with this. We were discussing potential contempt of court for this witness. And so you didn't

Starting point is 00:12:32 really have a right to be there. A transcript was taken. Brian Steele disagrees. But it sounds a little bit sticky, Judge. I mean, it sounds sticky from where we all sit. But what are your thoughts just basically as a judge? Do you think this is something that should have happened? Well, as a judge, I'm always very cautious about any ex parte communication. It's frowned upon and it's generally prohibited. There are exceptions. And the question is whether or not this exception has been met. Any exception has been met. That's my general response. So, Daryl, you're down there in Atlanta. You're sometimes in Judge Glanville's courtroom.

Starting point is 00:13:19 This has been a big deal. It's been in the press a lot over the last week or so. We've covered it. A lot of outlets have covered it. And Brian Steele was held in contempt. He doesn't believe Judge Glanville should be presiding over anything having to do with the contempt issue because he's a witness. He also thinks the judge should be recusing himself from the trial, anything having to do with this. Judge Glanville said this morning, well, that's not happening. I'm staying on this case. So he said he was going to write up an order for that. But your thoughts on the ex parte communication as an attorney, somebody who practices down there in Fulton County. I mean, the attorney for Kenneth Copeland outlines in this document what happened in that meeting. And Lil Woody said, you know, I don't want to testify and this is why. He then made some statements apparently about

Starting point is 00:14:12 statements of fact and then said, you know, I'm going to get up there and testify since you're saying I could be held indefinitely because of this, but everything I'm going to say is going to be a lie. And then he gets up on the stand and now he's in the middle of days long testimony. But your thoughts on this whole thing as an attorney who practices down there? To start with, I'm very disturbed, but this is not what I call a PFA. This is not pick from error. This has happened since the very beginning of this trial, which is the longest trial that has ever taken place in the state of Georgia. I think what is happening, a little separate and apart from this, is Judge Glanville is trying to take back his

Starting point is 00:14:56 courtroom. As people who have followed this know, he's had problems with the assistant DA, where there was virtually a shouting match. My view, he should have said one more word, you're going to be in contempt. He didn't do that. So now he has an ex parte hearing in his courtroom. And in my view, that it was not appropriate. Brian Steele, how he found out, my guess would be a deputy sheriff or a member of the judge's staff, a limited number of people that could have said something. Or Little Woody's lawyer. I'm sorry? Little Woody's lawyer, Caleb Umpis, could have told him. Could have been him. But regardless of who it was, Judge Glanville was insistent, I want to know who told you. I think that Brian Steele's conduct

Starting point is 00:15:49 in the courtroom, as we saw it on video, was appropriate. He was nice. He was respectful. He said, no, spelled N-O, not K-N-O-W. And so when Judge Glanville said, I'll give you five minutes, and Brian Steele said, no, I'm not going to do it. And so the fact that he was found in contempt, I think Judge Glanville was wrong. It was inappropriate. And the fact that Brian Steele is asking that Judge Glanville not preside over the contempt, I think is appropriate. I'm not a judge. My view.

Starting point is 00:16:22 Nothing more, nothing less. And Brian Steele, you know, he filed that super tedious. He filed for a super tedious bond with the Georgia appellate court, the Supreme Court. That was granted. So he's not having to spend his weekends in jail. Yet. Yet. Yet. So Judge Peeler, is throwing a lawyer, a defense attorney in jail for contempt over an issue like this? I mean, is that pretty extreme? I mean, what are your views on that as far as sending an attorney to jail for 10 weekends in a row? I mean, it's just it sounds very severe. And he was very upset because Brian Steele found out about something that happened in his chambers, and he wanted to know where the information came from. What are your thoughts on that? Well, first of all, from a judicial point, this appears to be a high-pressure matter that has gone on for an extremely long time.

Starting point is 00:17:26 It wears on a judge, and controlling the courtroom is difficult. It doesn't have to be a case of this nature. Anytime you have adversaries and good adversaries, there's a lot of pressure. So judges find themselves, I know I do often, working hard to try and maintain a cool, calm disposition, and you can't always. So you have to keep that in mind. It's a difficult thing to do. It's easier for us to sit here and look at it and discuss it than it is to actually live it. Second, contempt, our powers of contempt exist. But in Ohio, I look at appellate decisions, and they expect the judge to be very patient and to be very careful in exercising the power of contempt. It's a criminal offense. So anytime someone's held in contempt, it's a serious matter.

Starting point is 00:18:39 It's easy, again, to talk about this, but I always find myself wanting to take a break and think about it for a minute because I don't want to do something that I would regret. Because once we do, we sort of are entrenched there. When an appellate court in Ohio reviews a judge's conduct, and it's close as far as whether or not the judge has exacerbated the situation, whether or not the judge has been there in the treatment of the individual. If it's a tie, in my opinion, the judge is going to lose here. So that's what I try to be mindful of. We are expected to hold ourselves at a bit of a higher level than an advocate because the attorneys have a job to do and they need to be able to do that job. And it's different if there's a misrepresentation. It's different as to if the attorney is impeding the efficient administration of justice. You have to keep those things in mind. Otherwise, contempt is something you should, as a judge, you should be very careful about.

Starting point is 00:20:00 Interesting. So, Daryl, what do you see kind of happening with this? I mean, you're down there in Atlanta. You're in the courthouse. I mean, gosh, this is a mess. I mean, I'm sorry, but looking at it from the outside, just watching it unfold, you now have Young Thug on trial, his attorney, and as a beef with the judge and the attorney, I mean, they're going back and forth and they're trying to be professional, but that still impacts the case itself. And it's just a mess. So does Brian Steele end up winning this fight or not? I don't think anyone wins this fight. If I were predicting, I would say he will have his contempt overturned. But there's more to it than this.

Starting point is 00:20:46 What does the jury know? Obviously, the jury was not in the courtroom, but they are not having earplugs and eye blocks. They are going to hear about this and how that's going to affect the way they think about the court, the way they think about the judge, the way they think about the advocates, we'll never know until the end, and maybe not even then. So this is a soap opera. Judge Glanville might have been better off saying, I'm going to recuse myself. He could wash his hands. But on the other hand, he's doing the professional thing by saying, I want to stay there. I want to continue to preside on it but this case is so unpredictable it's predictably unpredictable and we don't know what's going to happen next there have been lawyers arrested they've been drugs passed in that courtroom it is awful but

Starting point is 00:21:37 when you are the judge and you're wearing the black robe unless you're in Florida, maybe a purple robe, you have to take and keep control of that courtroom. And that's part, in my view, and always has been, of your job as his or her honor. And you have to maintain that presence. And if somebody, whoever he or she may be, gets out of line, you have to control them. And you have to let them know in a measured way that it's your courtroom and it's the public's courtroom and you have to maintain that demeanor. I'm not happy with what's going on. I have no comment about the evidence or the lack of evidence. I'm just not happy with the way that proceeding has been taking place and seems to be continuing. Judge Glanville said this morning, Judge Peeler, that he's going to go through the transcript and

Starting point is 00:22:32 determine what should be released to the defense. And Brian Steele wants the entire transcript. What do you think of that? Do you think that maybe the entire transcript should be released to err on the side of transparency given what's happened? Well, again, transparency is good as long as there's no danger posed. There's a remedy for all the things that we're discussing. If someone feels the judge is acting improperly or should be taken off the case in Ohio, there's an affidavit for disqualification that can be filed. That's the remedy. If you ask the judge to recuse herself or himself and that the judge gives it his best as far as making a determination as to whether or not that should happen, there's a remedy. You file that with the Supreme Court here. The same thing for the contempt proceedings. It sounds like that happened in any contempt proceeding. You can appeal it

Starting point is 00:23:38 and request to stay and then have cooler heads prevail in the situation. So that's my thought is if you need to follow the proper procedure that's been set up. And when you're in the middle of a trial, it's a lot more difficult because you don't want to continue proceedings forever. Yeah, of course. Can I jump in and just say one thing? Forever. Daryl, should Judge Glanville release the entire transcript and not just what he said are parts of it? My view, if you have nothing to hide, then hide nothing. When you hide something, it makes it appear that there's a reason that you're hiding it and it's nefarious as opposed to appropriate. I think the entire transcript needs to be released, period, the end.

Starting point is 00:24:33 Interesting. Well, we will keep an eye on it. For right now, Judge Glanville says he is not recusing himself and this trial is continuing. So Judge Robert Peeler and Daryl Cohen, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Young Thug's Attorneys Want Judge Off Trial After 'Star Chamber' Meeting

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Young Thug's Attorneys Want Judge Off Trial After 'Star Chamber' Meeting

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