After more than 10 months of jury selection and 100 days of trial for another half year, the sprawling and long-delayed gang conspiracy case against Atlanta rapper Young Thug and five associates has been put on hold indefinitely.
Judge Ural Glanville announced Monday in a Fulton County, Ga., courtroom that the case will not proceed until another judge decides whether Judge Glanville should recuse himself from overseeing the trial. The surprise decision followed weeks of arguments between the court and defense attorneys, who argued that a meeting between the judge, prosecutors and an uncooperative witness was inappropriate and potentially unconstitutional.
Judge Glanville had previously refused multiple motions by the defense calling for him to recuse himself, characterizing his actions over last month’s meeting and its aftermath. But on Monday, during a hearing on the release of a transcript of the secret meeting, he agreed that an outside judge should decide how the trial proceeds.
Jurors have not heard testimony in the case for two weeks amid the turmoil and were not expected to return until next Monday, after the July 4 holiday weekend. Asked by a prosecutor how long it would take for the trial to start again, Judge Glanville said the decision was no longer within his remit. “Hopefully it will be done fairly quickly,” he said.
Already plagued by upheaval and complications both outside and inside the courtroom, the case hit its latest hurdle on June 7, when a key prosecution witness, Kenneth Copeland, refused to testify after being sworn in, citing his Fifth Amendment right to protection against self-incrimination despite the fact that immunity has already been granted.
Mr. Copeland spent a weekend in jail on a contempt charge and then agreed to testify, although he remained hard pressed to identify key factual issues. When Brian Steel, Young Thug’s lawyer, raised concerns about whether Mr. Copeland had been forced to testify during a coercion meeting with Judge Glanville and prosecutors, the judge demanded to know how Mr. Steel found out about the closed door meeting and then scorned him.
For refusing to reveal his source, Mr Steel was sentenced to up to 20 days in jail, to be served at weekends, although the sentence was stayed while Mr Steel appeals the decision.
In a motion filed Friday, Douglas S. Weinstein, an attorney for another defendant in the case, argued that the judge’s secret meeting with a sworn witness and the judge’s refusal to recuse himself “attack the public’s confidence in the independence, integrity and impartiality”. of the case. He added, “An appearance of impropriety and bias hangs over this trial because of Chief Justice Glanville’s failure to follow the law.”
Judge Glanville said on Monday that she would release the minutes of her private meeting with Mr Copeland.
Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, and 27 associates were originally indicted in May 2022 under the state of Georgia’s Racketeer Crime Act, or RICO, the same law used to indict former President Donald J. Trump and others in which prosecutors called a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
Prosecutors allege that Mr. Williams was a leader of YSL, or Young Slime Life, a subset of the national Bloods gang, and that he oversaw a criminal conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, witness intimidation and drug trafficking.
