After more than 10 months of jury selection and a 100-day trial spanning half a year, the massive and long-delayed gang conspiracy lawsuit against Atlanta rapper Young Thug and five associates has been indefinitely stayed.
Judge Ural Glanville announced Monday that the case will not proceed until another judge in the Fulton County, Georgia, court decides whether Glanville should recuse himself from his role as trial superintendent. The surprising ruling follows weeks of disputes between the court and attorneys, who argued that meetings between judges, prosecutors and uncooperative witnesses were improper and potentially unconstitutional.
Judge Glanville previously denied several defense motions asking him to recuse himself, arguing that his actions during the meeting and its aftermath last month were appropriate. But in a hearing Monday on whether to release transcripts of the secret meeting, he agreed that an outside judge should decide how the trial should proceed.
The jury has not heard testimony in the case for two weeks amid the turmoil and is not expected to return until next Monday, after the Fourth of July holiday weekend. When prosecutors asked how long it would be before the trial could resume, Judge Glanville said that decision was no longer within his jurisdiction. “Hopefully, it will be fairly quick,” he said.
The case, already plagued by turmoil and complications both inside and outside the courtroom, reached its latest snag on June 7, when a key prosecution witness, Kenneth Copeland, exercised his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify under oath, despite having already been granted immunity.
Copeland agreed to testify after spending the weekend in jail on a contempt charge, but was still unconvinced on basic factual issues. When Young Thug’s attorney, Brian Steele, raised concerns about whether Copeland had been coerced into testifying in a coercive interview with Judge Glanville and prosecutors, the judge asked Steele how he learned of the private interview and whether he had been charged with contempt.
Mr Steele was sentenced to up to 20 days in jail for refusing to reveal his sources, which was to be served over the weekend, but the sentence was suspended while Mr Steele appealed the decision.
In a motion filed Friday, Douglas S. Weinstein, a lawyer representing another defendant in the case, argued that the judge’s secret meetings with sworn witnesses and her refusal to step down “undermined the public’s confidence in the independence, integrity and impartiality of the case.” He added that “Chief Judge Glanville’s failure to follow the law lends the present trial an appearance of impropriety and bias.”
Judge Glanville said he would release the transcript of the private meeting with Mr Copeland on Monday.
Young Thug (real name Jeffery Williams) and 27 of his associates were first indicted in May 2022 under Georgia’s RICO (Repeated Influenced Conspiracy) statute, the same one prosecutors used to charge former President Donald J. Trump and others with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.
Prosecutors allege Williams was the leader of Young Slime Life, a sub-group of the national Bloods gang, and oversaw a criminal conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, robbery, witness intimidation and drug trafficking.