{"id":1449,"date":"2024-06-21T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/young-thug-co-defendant-asks-georgia-court-to-force-judge-to-recuse\/"},"modified":"2024-06-21T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:00:00","slug":"young-thug-co-defendant-asks-georgia-court-to-force-judge-to-recuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/young-thug-co-defendant-asks-georgia-court-to-force-judge-to-recuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Thug Co-Defendant Asks Georgia Court to Force Judge to Recuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tOne of Young Thug<\/a>\u2019s co-defendants is asking the Georgia Supreme Court to force the judge overseeing the rapper\u2019s high-profile gang trial to recuse himself, arguing that a secret meeting with prosecutors and a witness was a serious violation of judicial ethics.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Ural Glanville<\/strong> himself has already repeatedly refused requests from Thug\u2019s attorney Brian Steel<\/strong> and other defense lawyers that he step aside over allegations about the so-called ex parte meeting \u2013 and instead ordered Steel jailed after he refused to divulge how he learned of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo on Thursday, lawyers for fellow rapper and co-defendant Yak Gotti (Deamonte Kendrick<\/strong>) filed an emergency petition asking the state\u2019s high court to force Glanville to do so.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGlanville\u2019s actions offend public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary,\u201d wrote Yak Gotti\u2019s attorney Doug Weinstein<\/strong>. \u201cAn appearance of impropriety and bias hangs over the present trial due to Glanville\u2019s failure to follow the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIf the petition is granted, it would be the second time Georgia\u2019s Supreme Court has jumped into the YSL trial. Last week, the high court hit pause on Steel\u2019s jail sentence and agreed to review the judge\u2019s decision to hold the lawyer in contempt.<\/p>\n

\n\tThug (Jeffery Williams<\/strong>) and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that his \u201cYSL\u201d was not really a record label called \u201cYoung Stoner Life\u201d but rather a violent Atlanta gang called \u201cYoung Slime Life.\u201d Prosecutors claim the group committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade. After kicking off in January 2023, the trial is already the longest in Georgia state history and is expected to run until early next year.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an extraordinary courtroom episode last week, Steel revealed that he had learned of an ex parte meeting between Glanville, prosecutors and a witness named Kenneth Copeland. Steel argued that such a meeting, without defense counsel present, was clear grounds for a mistrial. He claimed Glanville had helped prosecutors coerce the uncooperative Copeland into testifying with threats of extended jail time.<\/p>\n

\n\tCopeland is a central witness for the entire racketeering case against Thug and the other alleged YSL members, but he\u2019s particularly important for the case against Yak Gotti. His testimony pertains to the 2015 murder of Donovan \u201cNut\u201d Thomas Jr.<\/strong>, which Gotti and fellow defendant Shannon Stillwell<\/strong> are directly charged with committing.<\/p>\n

\n\tRather than address Steel\u2019s complaints, Glanville instead demanded to know how he had learned of the meeting, suggesting that it had been the result of an illegal leak. The judge eventually held Steel in contempt of court when the lawyer refused to name names, sentencing him to serve 20 days in county jail as punishment.<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this week, Steel and other defense attorneys later demanded that the judge step aside from the case over the incident. In his motion, Thug\u2019s attorney argued that Glanville had \u201cforfeited [his] role as an impartial judge and has become a member of the prosecution team.\u201d But the judge quickly denied the request, saying it was based on \u201cbare assertions and legal conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his petition to the Supreme Court, Yak Gotti\u2019s attorney Weinstein echoed Steel\u2019s arguments. He said the allegations against the judge \u201ccasts a pall\u201d over the ongoing case and represents \u201cobstruction of defendant\u2019s right to a fair and impartial trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDefense counsel should have been afforded an opportunity to attend any hearing where a sworn witness in a critical stage of the trial is being coerced to testify,\u201d Weinstein wrote. \u201cThe only logical conclusion for the secret nature of the proceeding was to give Glanville in conjunction with the State the unfettered ability to harass and intimidate the sworn witness into testifying.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Young Thug\u2019s co-defendants is asking the Georgia Supreme Court to force the judge overseeing the rapper\u2019s high-profile gang trial to recuse himself, arguing that a secret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1051,2077,143,2078,484,423,1490,1095,1094],"class_list":["post-1449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-asks","tag-codefendant","tag-court","tag-force","tag-georgia","tag-judge","tag-recuse","tag-thug","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}