Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 6 Strangest Moments In The Young Thug Trial So Far

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Jury selection in the RICO trial of Atlanta rapper Young Thug and his co-defendants has been anything but dull. From an alleged drug deal in court, to a juror being assigned a 30-page written essay, the trial has kicked off to an unusual start. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy discusses six of the strangest moments in the trial so far with Atlanta Journal Constitution Crime and Courts reporter Shaddi Abusaid. They talk about how this could end up being one of the longest trials in Georgia's history.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Possible drug deals, essays as punishment and a naked Zoom bomb. All of these things have come up in Young Thug's Trial in Atlanta. We take a look at six of the strangest moments from jury selection so far. And you decided you're going to do what you wanted to do. It's not what I wanted to do. Well, you pulled out your phone and videotaped our proceedings and that was in direct

violation of this court's order. So I'm going to sentence you to three days of, uh, in, uh, in, in, in jail. I'm Antoinette Levy and welcome to law and crime sidebar podcast. Jury selection started in Young Thugs RICO trial back on January 4th. It's hard to imagine. It's been underway for three months now, more than three months, actually. There have been some starts and stops. Young Thug, whose legal name is Jeffrey Williams, faces a number of RICO counts.

That's short for racketeer, influenced, and corrupt organization act. Essentially, Williams and his co-defendants are accused of being part of the YSL Street Gang. Judge Ural Glanville is presiding over the trial, and he's held several potential jurors in contempt of court, even assigning one a 30-page written essay. Typically, jury selection is incredibly tedious, and some might even call it boring, but not in this case. Joining me to discuss this case is Shadi Abu Saeed.

He is the Crime and Courts reporter with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and he's been following this case. Welcome to sidebar, Shaddy. Thanks for having me. Excited to talk with you about this. First off, let's talk jury selection. This feels like it's the longest jury selection,

ever, at least it's the longest one I've ever seen. So what are your thoughts about that? It's definitely taken a lot longer than we'd initially expected. It began January 4, and here we are more than three months later, and still not a single juror has been seated. And they're still on the hardships with the judge basically asking jurors to provide proof and evidence that this is indeed going to be a hardship for them to serve on this jury. Correct. The trial's expected to take about nine months, maybe even a year. So what we're seeing is a lot of potential jurors can't take that kind of time off work or their employers won't pay them to take that kind of time off for jury service. So many people are expressing concerns about losing their homes,

losing their jobs, the chances of promotion, that sort of thing. And that's why we're seeing it takes so long. And that's completely understandable. Let's get now to some of these moments that seem like they've been pretty unusual in this case. The first one is when Young Thug was accused of taking drugs from one of his co-defendants. So let's take a look at a little bit of this clip. As you can see in the clip, fellow co-defendant Khalif Adams appears to stand up in the middle of the courtroom, sort of walk over to where Jeffrey Williams is sitting and hand him something. Now, Young Thug's lawyers say, you know, he barely knew the guy and, you know, that he wasn't involved in this, that he didn't want to be handed that in open court. But

there were just deputies standing everywhere and it was on, it was on surveillance camera. Daddy, you know, it's interesting because it's not unusual to hear about contraband and things like that in jails, but to actually have it happen kind of out in the open like this, pretty unusual from what I've experienced. Absolutely. And, you know, Youngton's attorney say he was genuinely surprised that he was shocked that this was, you know, handed to him, this alleged Percocet pill. So the deputy saw it quickly, went over there. They made him hand it over, ended up searching Mr. Adams. And court was delayed that day because of this. Now there's another thing that happens during jury selection many times. Many times judges don't allow jury selection to be recorded at all by the media. Other times they do allow it and it's being allowed in this case. But one thing that happened that was a little bit odd as far as I can tell is that a juror was apparently captured or caught a recording video in court, which seems really odd. So let's take a look at that. 10-04 good morning madam good morning madam just to recap you were summoned as a juror on the 17th of March of this year to begin the jury selection process is that correct yes sir all right and during that particular process do you recall and let me back up just a second because of conduct that occurred on or alleged conduct that occurred on

the 20 I should say 17th of March you were served with a order to show cause that was filed on the 20th of March of this year to appear on this date the 3rd of April at 10 o'clock in courtroom 1C you received a copy of that notice didn't you yes sir all right and that notice also put you gave you sufficient notice that As to why you should not be held in willful contempt for violating the court's abominations against improper jury behavior, specifically live streaming the jury selection process on Friday, March the 17th of 2023. Do you recall that? I'm going to include that as a copy of the next court exhibit in order.

That's your notice that we gave you. Um, so you are from, you are at this point in time, uh, I, why shouldn't I hold you in willful contempt? Um, okay, so I'm going to explain what everything that happened that day on the 17th of March. Okay, but before then, do you recall this court giving you the ad nauseum admonitions about acceptable behavior? About having phones out? Yes. At the moment when we came in, didn't I tell you to turn your phone off? It was. I'm going to be truthfully and very honest. When it was a lot going on, we had just come from different forms.

Answer my question first, and then you can explain it. Do you recall us telling you to turn off your cell phones? Yes, sir. Shaddy, what were your thoughts when this happened? Well, she was held in contempt. Her excuse was she, you know, came in there. There were a lot of people, and she pulled out her phone and took a short video. It was initially believed that she had live streamed the proceedings,

but she told the judge during her contempt hearing that that wasn't the case. That she just recorded a video and then a fellow juror told her, hey, you can't do that. She put it away. She said she deleted the video. But the deputies came over pretty quickly. They looked in her phone. They saw this video. And the judge was not pleased about it.

Definitely not pleased at all. And, you know, I don't know. Maybe this woman thought she just wanted to capture the experience. Maybe she's a young thug fan. I don't know. But certainly seems odd, to say the least. People are usually trying to get out of jury selection, but not quite like this. or jury duty, I should say. Shady, there was another issue with a juror in this case. And this reminds

me of a punishment that we used to get in eighth grade. I had a teacher named Mr. Carr in history class. He would punish kids by having them write out the Declaration of Independence X number of times. So the judge in this case actually made a woman write a 30-page essay. Let's take a little look at what the judge said in that case. We take this very seriously in order to get a lawful and a fair and a just jury as to both sides. So, you know, there are a lot of people that were inconvenienced. I mean, severely inconvenience. You're not the only person in outlaid money.

I examined people yesterday who lost literally thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to be here, and I had to make decisions in regards to that. But I didn't even get a chance to examine you about your circumstance because you went to, you know, you decided, you said, okay, I'm going to go and you didn't afford me the opportunity to do that. Now, certainly, I understand you can't be in two places at one time. So ordinarily, madam, I do find you in contempt, but here's what I'm going to do.

Contempt is punished well easily by a fine of $1,000 and or 20 days in jail. I am not going to find you. I'm going to, well first, Madam, did you attend college? Yes. You have a four-year degree? That's seven, say. Say again? Yes, yes.

All right. What I think I'm going to do is, in order for you to satisfy your contempt, I'm going to commute the 20 days and require you to write a 30-page paper on the importance of jury service. Here's the criteria. You'll have to do APA style. You're going to have to use at least 10 primary sources, 10 secondary sources. You'll talk in a minimum, and I'll write this in the order.

You'll have an order. You'll have it before you leave here today. You're going to write at a minimum history, the history of jury service. Who could not serve on a jury? Because that's very important, because years ago, people that looked like us couldn't serve on juries. It was prohibited.

I want you to talk about jury service in Georgia and discrimination at a minimum. Those four things, okay? And you can talk about anything else you want in that regard. Shaddy, have you ever seen anything like this? No, I've not. I've not. And this woman, she appeared for, you know, jury service and then, I guess, had a trip book to the Dominican Republic. She said it was for work.

So she left the country against the judge's wishes, didn't have, you know, clarification from the jury service. services people and missed the next day and the judge was was not pleased about that. He wanted to make her write a, he told her to write a 30-page essay about the importance of jury service with, you know, 10 primary sources, 10 secondary sources, and he wanted it in APA style. I've never, I don't even think I've been assigned a 30-page essay in college. I mean, I think the most, the, I have maybe had to write a 10-page or 12-page paper, 30-page. ages. Do we know if the woman completed this assignment? She did. The judge said he read it and it was too satisfaction, let her off the hook on the contempt charge. But there were people online

talking about, you know, I'd rather have the jail time. You know, I'm not in college anymore. I'm not in high school. Give me the jail time instead of making me write a, you know, 30-page paper. Tell us a little bit about the judge in this case. What has your experience been covering this particular judge? Well, he's not, he's not messing around with this trial. And it seems like he is taking his time and minutes obviously been going on for three months just jury selection but it seems like he wants to get it right um he comes from a military background and um seems pretty stern with with some of the defendants and some of the attorneys so far kind of makes me wonder with that military background is he going to tell people next time

they're held in contempt to like drop and give him 20 or something like that i mean it'll be interesting to see if he assigns pushups or uh running miles or something like that makes me think of the movie a few good men. All right, let's move on now. A young thugs lawyer is shocked by a naked Zoom bombing during a hearing. Shaddy, we see things happen on Zoom a lot. Since the pandemic started, there are some strange things that pop up on Zoom. But this one was definitely one of the strangest things I've heard of. That one stunned everyone. It was one of the first days where everybody was in the same courtroom. So you had all the defendants in there, all their attorneys and they were going through motions and uh it looks like they got zoom bomb so this just popped

up on everybody's screen on the television in the courtroom and you know it's graphic lasted for several seconds um before the judge said you know we've been hacked and instructed the deputies to shut off all the you know all the TVs I mean did any were there any repercussions from this at all or was it just one of these things that happens and you you have remedy it you take care of it and you move on yeah I think that's what the judge did kind of moved past it got back business. You know, as you can see in the in the video, some of the defendants, you know, cracking up, trying to fight back smiles and others were, you know, it took it pretty seriously. Shaddy, let's look now as Young Thug's co-defendant claims that Donald Trump, you know,

who at the time was not yet facing criminal charges, but is now, but that Donald Trump would help him beat the rap. Shaddy, your thoughts on this with a co-defendant claiming that Donald Trump is going to help him beat the case. Definitely not something we see every day. This co-defendant Jaden Myrick has already been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for another murder, but he's been trying to represent himself. So this was a hearing to see, you know, whether he could do that. And he said that Donald Trump was helping him, that Joe Biden was helping him, that

Georgia Senator John Ossoff was helping him. So it's pretty bizarre, not something you see every day. and the judge actually ordered a mental competency hearing for him. So we'll see the results of that and decide, you know, how to move forward. Yeah. Mentioning all of those people, it kind of makes you wonder if there is possibly a mental health concern here or a mental health issue, especially if this person feels they are communicating with these people. We don't know if maybe they're hearing voices in their head, things to that effect.

So it's very concerning, especially when you've got him talking about Joe Biden, John Ossoff, the senator, and then Donald Trump, the former president. You know, there's a third issue that's come up with contempt of a juror, and he's going to have to do this juror, 10 hours of community service, speaking on the importance of jury duty, and physically he will have to sit in the trial for five days. So that is a very interesting punishment. Let's take a look at that.

Contempt is punishable by a fine of $1,000. and 20 days in jail. So why shouldn't I do that? Well, Your Honor, I was just inquiring about the speed of the, or the speed of the hardships. But doesn't it go against... It does, and I take full responsibility. I mean, the reason that I go through all these admonitions is

I told you that we have actually had to. people do those in other trials and that affects the fairness the lawfulness and the uh of the trial as to both sides i mean that admonition i went through with you all was probably about 50 was about 10 minutes at least yes yes so why did you think why would you think this would this would this would be okay for you to inquire about this it was a dumb mistake on my part i mean because that tells me you were listening on the media or as which is what i told you not to do is what remember yes your honor I mean this is this is how this is how we have hiccups and trials and we have to sometimes start over because people people

don't do what they're supposed to do so I'm gonna find you a willful contempt of my order I'm gonna send you to 20 days but I'm gonna suspend those 20 days on two on the condition of two things one you're gonna do ten hours of community service at a school a synagogue a church telling them this is your subject title behavior choices consequences all right then when we pick a jury in this case you're gonna come for the first five days of trial okay that will satisfy your contempt if you don't do the ten hours and provide me proof you need to do that with the next 30 days about it out fair enough

That's very fair, Your Honor. It seems to me, Shaddy, that this judge has some interesting ways, as we've mentioned, of meeting out punishments to potential jurors. And I feel like in some respects, yes, I see his point, but at the same time, is he possibly turning people off to jury service? I mean, these are some odd things that have happened. I've served on juries twice in my life. And I didn't see anything like this during jury. selection and I was in there in the pool. This may be a huge pool just because of the length of the case and things like that and people with all different kinds of backgrounds, they come

from different walks of life. But this certainly seems very odd. Yeah, it seems to me like the judge is trying to make examples of certain people to set a precedent for, you know, things that will and won't be allowed in its courtroom. We saw that with the, you know, the juror who was instructed to write a 30-page essay or the one who was, you know, held in contempt recently. he's not messing around when it comes to his instructions. And in this case, he says that he, you know, told him clearly, don't read about this case in the media, you know, don't discuss the case with anyone. And this potential juror sent a Twitter message to a colleague of mine asking him about, you know, the holdup, what was taking so long with the jury selection process. And the judge was not pleased with that.

How long has Judge Glanville been on the bench? And do you know if this is something that's common practice for him, too? to do things like this. I don't have a lot of experience, you know, dealing with him myself. He's in a couple other big cases, but I've never seen anything like this in a jury selection process. Well, it is certainly interesting, and we will continue to follow it if they ever get a jury in this case.

It almost makes me feel like, are they just dragging this thing out, hoping some plea will be worked out? I don't know, but nine months I can see would certainly be a hardship for most people unless you're retired or what have you. So Shadi Abu Saeed, Crime and Courts reporter with the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Thanks so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Of course.

Thank you for having me. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.