Young Thug RICO Trial to Resume After Judge Refuses to Declare Mistrial Over Secret Meeting
Young Thug’s sprawling Atlanta gang trial is set to resume after the judge denied requests to declare a mistrial — though she also admonished prosecutors for suppressing evidence and ordered them to take remedial training on due process requirements.
In a pair of rulings issued Thursday (Aug. 8), Judge Paige Reese Whitaker denied the final two remaining motions for a mistrial over revelations of a secret meeting between the previous presiding judge, prosecutors and a key witness named Kenneth Copeland.
That incident has already resulted in Judge Ural Glanville being removed from the case. But in her decisions Thursday, Whitaker said the secret “ex parte” meeting was not enough to force prosecutors to start from scratch after 20 months of trial.
In practical terms, the rulings mean that witness testimony can resume Monday (Aug. 12) after eight weeks of delay caused by the secret meeting and the resulting fallout. But even before that delay, the trial had not been expected to wrap up until early next year.
Thug — real name Jeffery Williams — and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over allegations that their YSL was not really a record label called Young Stoner Life but rather a violent Atlanta gang called Young Slime Life. Citing Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, prosecutors claim the group operated a criminal enterprise that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
The trial kicked off in January 2023 but has faced repeated delays and disruptions, including an unprecedented 10-month jury selection, the stabbing of another defendant, and now the tumult over the ex parte meeting and the removal of Glanville. Throughout the entire process, Young Thug has remained in jail; last week, Whitaker denied a renewed motion to release him on bond.
In their mistrial motions, defense attorneys have argued that the secret meeting violated the so-called Brady rule — a core requirement in American criminal law that prosecutors must hand over evidence that might help defendants. In particular, defense attorneys say they should have been told that, during the secret meeting, Copeland stated he had “never been truthful a day in my life.”
In one of her rulings on Thursday, Whitaker said the failure to alert defense attorneys about Copeland’s statement was “likely inadvertent” and not “a purposeful violation.” But she nonetheless sharply criticized prosecutors for it.
“For a defense attorney, this nugget by a key state’s witness is gold,” Whitaker said. “So when the prosecution not only did not reduce this statement to writing and produce it, but also asserted in court filings that the defense had no entitlement to know the contents of the ex parte proceedings, this amounted to suppression, whether willful or otherwise, of what was objectively Brady impeachment material.”
Since Copeland’s statements were ultimately revealed to defense attorneys and they can still use them to question his credibility with jurors in future proceedings, Whitaker said the prosecutors’ actions did not “technically” amount to an actual violation of the Brady rule. But once again, she cautioned prosecutors about any repeats.
“The fact that a violation of a defendant’s Constitutional rights has been averted does not, under these circumstances, provide cause for celebration,” the judge wrote. “What it does provide is cause for sober reflection and an examination of processes, procedures, and approaches that permitted this likely inadvertent but nonetheless serious Brady lapse to occur.”
Citing the fact that it was “not the first allegation of prosecutorial misconduct in this case,” Whitaker also took an unusual step: She ordered prosecutors to sit down for additional training on disclosing evidence.
“The court … orders, as a remedial measure, that the entire prosecution team working this trial submit to training on Brady and other professional obligations of a prosecutor,” the judge wrote. “This training will consist of a video replay of training on this topic.”
A spokesman for the Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not immediately return a request for comment on Whitaker’s ruling.
