ATLANTA — It was a busy day inside a Fulton County courtroom as opening statements in the YSL RICO trial kicked off.
Channel 2′s Michael Seiden was in the courtroom Monday, where opening statements were originally delayed for about 90 minutes after a juror was late due to car issues.
About 20 minutes into the State’s opening statements, attorneys for the six defendants on trial, including Grammy-nominated rapper Young Thug, motioned for a mistrial.
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This comes after Young Thug’s attorney, Brian Steele, objected during the opening statements. The jury was removed from the courtroom as Steele said that his reason for objection was because Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Adriane Love presented information to the jury during her opening statements that was not disclosed to the defense.
“For 10 years and counting, the group calling itself Young Slime Life dominated, dominated the Cleveland Avenue community,” Love stated.
Attorneys for the defendants argued that, although Judge Glanville required both sides to share information and or documents that would be mentioned in opening statements last week, the State did not.
The initial information in question appeared on a PowerPoint slide that mentioned the conviction of another defendant. That conviction is currently on appeal.
Judge Glanville denied the motion for mistrial, arguing that he gave the jury instructions that opening statements are not evidence and should not be considered as such. He did agree that he required both sides to share information and documents that would be mentioned in opening statements.
“I am not happy about any of this,” Glanville said to the courtroom.
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Love told Judge Glanville that she would send over the entire PowerPoint presentation to the defense attorneys.
After sending the presentation to defense attorneys, many of them argued that the slides should be excluded as the State violated the court’s order and purposely did not share the information before Monday.
“I would just ask that the court use their instruction and make the State follow the instructions that the court already gave,” Attorney Misty Williams stated.
Williams and other defense attorneys also pointed out multiple errors in the presentation. Some of those errors included wrong arrest dates. Another error mentioned a defendant as the person who “gunned down at 23-year-old.” Attorney Love stated that she would remedy those errors.
“There are at least a dozen slides that were never turned over to us,” another defense attorney argued. “I would ask that any slides that have not already been shown to the jury be excluded in her opening statements.”
The judge decided to issue a lunch recess and directed the prosecutors to show the defense attorneys their slides and correct any errors.
“If I get another objection about an error, I’m going to exclude it for the purpose of opening statements because you didn’t follow my instructions,” Glanville said.
After lunch, the State was allowed to continue their opening statements where they claimed Young Thug was the leader of the notorious street gang and said it was a subset of the National Bloods gang.
Prosecutors also pushed back against the narrative that rap is on trial, they explained that the evidence from social media and crime scenes show proof of the crimes committed not the lyrics from popular songs.
The defense is set to resume their opening statements Tuesday morning.
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