How do you guys feel about prosecutors using rap lyrics in indictments?

[atlsfinest]

That'd be the point here...

If a DA has "dna evidence, text messages, cell phone towers and ballistics" then why sully the case and attack free speech with character assignation / jury bias?

If you cant convict a criminal without becoming one then what's the point?

Its Unconstitutional Fam.

Huh? Are you familiar with trial law at all? Prosecutors and defense attorneys constantly be used anything they can to attack character and motivations. Text messages, pictures, videos. Even if you smile and don't look remorseful in your mugshot, they will use that at trial against you.

Character assassination is half of the game.

 

[tr1ll]

Besides, when you get arrested, whats one of the first thing they say(if they say anything) when you get arrested?


“Anything you say can…and WILL be used against you in a court of law”

 

[Present]

If you’re gonna “speak to the folks in the back” make sure you say everything where they can hear.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/05/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-on-using-rap-lyrics-as-evidence-for-the-second-time/

[qoute]
What he wrote was violent but unconnected to the case, yet the state, in the words of the Supreme Court, “did not attempt to clarify or explain the lyrics in any way.” The jury eventually convicted Skinner of attempted murder, aggravated assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. But the conviction was reversed on appeal, with a panel finding that the use of the lyrics as evidence was “reversible error and necessitated a new trial.”

Bruh!

They not listening anyway.

 

[finessence]

Besides, when you get arrested, whats one of the first thing they say(if they say anything) when you get arrested?


“Anything you say can…and WILL be used against you in a court of law”

Dudes must’ve never heard of reckless eyeballing… even if you LOOK at one of them female deputies sideways while locked up, you can get a charge.

Dudes be living in fairytale worlds

 

[Present]

Huh? Are you familiar with trial law at all? Prosecutors and defense attorneys constantly be used anything they can to attack character and motivations. Text messages, pictures, videos. Even if you smile and don't look remorseful in your mugshot, they will use that at trial against you.

Character assassination is half of the game.

"Character assassination is half of the game."

 

[Raji Lowenthal]

More like character suicide they way these dudes was talking.

 

[atlsfinest]

If you’re gonna “speak to the folks in the back” make sure you say everything where they can hear.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/08/05/the-new-jersey-supreme-court-rules-on-using-rap-lyrics-as-evidence-for-the-second-time/

[qoute]
What he wrote was violent but unconnected to the case, yet the state, in the words of the Supreme Court, “did not attempt to clarify or explain the lyrics in any way.” The jury eventually convicted Skinner of attempted murder, aggravated assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. But the conviction was reversed on appeal, with a panel finding that the use of the lyrics as evidence was “reversible error and necessitated a new trial.”

[/quote]
The state disagreed, citing in part the only other time the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled on rap lyrics as evidence. In that murder case, the court found that such lyrics could be admitted for a number of reasons, including that they shed light on the killer’s motive and portrayed “a desire to experience the thrill of killing,” they said in this latest opinion. But in this case, they found that the introduction of evidence could not pass all four parts of a test established in the state in 1992, known as the Cofield test. In explaining part of that analysis, the court noted the difficulty in proving that artistic expression equals action.[/quote]



TL; DR?

Vonte Skinner’s Rap Lyrics Were Ruled Inadmissible by the New Jersey Supreme Court

On Monday, a unanimous Supreme Court decided Skinner's “highly prejudicial” rap lyrics should have been inadmissible in court because they “bore a high likelihood of poisoning the jury against the defendant” and ordered a retrial for Skinner. Maybe we...

www.vice.com

[/QUOTE]

Bruh!

They not listening anyway.

The epilogue here is that he was tried again, convicted again because law enforcement had hard evidence along with the lyrics but y'all aren't trying to hear that.

 

[Present]

The epilogue here is that he was tried again, convicted again because law enforcement had hard evidence along with the lyrics but y'all aren't trying to hear that.

 

[JPS]

You can tell NT never read whole articles

 

[DCAllAfrican]

More like character suicide they way these dudes was talking.

 

[DCAllAfrican]

This is fair.

I didn't know I was suspended as I haven't been on NT since my last post.

My intent was to object to offensive content and the way that Computers (and WUCHI01) was presenting violence as mainly being committed by one group of people. My concern was further driven by the fact that Computers as Methodical stated, does weird racist stuff to troll in other threads and it was going unchecked despite it being reported on multiple occasions (yeah some of those violations were addressed but not all of them).

People took my objections the wrong way, incorrectly equating my words to those of another user who was banned from the website.

Yes I do have personal grievances with a few people here and those interactions took over... that was also not my intent.

This is not the first time I have said this in this thread but it's worth repeating- I don't support any form of violence and that includes violence towards Asians. I also do not support any form of anti-Black behavior and neither should anyone in this thread even in light of it being called the Asian Culture thread. You can be pro-Asian without being Anti-Black, 0 effort required.

As long as Computers Putin and a few others who avoid the discussion but make sure to take cheap shots and run/duck/hide , keep the anti- every other race, especially Black out of the discussion, I don't have any problems here.

Peace.

Well said.

 

[JPS]

The irony

 

[DCAllAfrican]

Seems like you are doing everything in your power to be included in the convo.

What do you want exactly?

 

[WASHED KING]

Interesting thread

 

[DCAllAfrican]

More like character suicide they way these dudes was talking.

Which also makes the, "Vlad is the feds" comments funny because dudes go on THERE talking about their personal affairs.

 

[Belgium]

I think the line between what lyrics are and aren't admissible is kinda blurry. Like others have said though, I can think of a lot of lyrics that directly reference specific crimes in a not so subtle manner. So those who essentially give prosecutors a roadmap of criminal activity and those involved through disstracks shouldn't be surprised when they win stupid prizes.

 

[Present]

I think the line between what lyrics are and aren't admissible is kinda blurry.

Exactly the same conclusion at which the Supreme Court arrived in the case.

Again, there is a reason they are only doing this to rappers.

That in and of itself is unconstitutional.

Equal justice under law.

Imagine an actor's character called into question over a role they were playing in a movie.

Imagine a writer's character called into question over a book they wrote.

Pandora's Box.

Keystone Cop Business

 

[TSCQ]

Exactly the same conclusion at which the Supreme Court arrived in the case.

Again, there is a reason they are only doing this to rappers.

That in and of itself is unconstitutional.

Equal justice under law.

exactly!! which some of these people in this thread fail to understand.
I haven't seen the same legal tactics applied to white music artists, so how can we sit here and type that this is fair to black artists.
They need to stick to evidence that is directly involved in the crime.

 

[tr1ll]

Because aint no white folk been in this situation.

Btw, you ever play “Among Us”? My favorite thing to do is kill someone then accuse the witness.

 

[Present]

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO today, a judge ruled that heavy-metal trendsetters Judas Priest were not liable for the deaths of two young men who cited the band’s music as the reason they killed themselves. One day in December 1985, the men — Raymond Belknap, then 18, and James Vance, 20 — had spent six hours drinking, smoking marijuana and listening to the metal band’s Stained Class album, after which each man took a shotgun and shot himself. Belknap died instantly, but Vance lived, sustaining serious injuries that left him disfigured; he died three years later.

Before his death, Vance and his parents sued the band and their label at the time, CBS Records, for $6.2 million in damages. They claimed that Judas Priest had hidden subliminal messages like “try suicide,” “do it” and “let’s be dead” in their cover of Spooky Tooth’s “Better by You, Better Than Me,” influencing Vance and Belknap to form a suicide pact. The suit went to trial in July, 1990, and the prosecution played the song forward, backward and sped up in an attempt to prove the group had brainwashed these two young men into killing themselves.

As a “defendant of the faith” — as Rolling Stone described him in 1990, punning off the band’s Defenders of the Faith album title — the group’s frontman, Rob Halford, testified in court that the supposed “backward masking” in the tune was the sound of him exhaling while singing. The band’s attorneys also drew attention to Vance and Belknap’s troubled childhoods and substance-abuse problems. The judge ultimately decided that the group was not responsible. Below, Halford took some time to reflect on what was a landmark case in recorded music before he and the rest of Judas Priest readied themselves for a U.S. tour this October.

 

[tr1ll]

Sooo what you saying is they DID use this tactic against white folks was almost as soon as they did against the black community???

Interesting.

 

[Present]

Some folks are Bill O'Reilly and some folks are John Stewart.

As it relates to the Judas Priest case -

The burden of proof is much lower in a civil trial), and the tactic failed - establishing a legal president that still stands (for certain folks).

25 years later, that very same tactic is endorsed by DA's, Judges, and State Legislatures, in criminal court, where the burden of proof is much higher - but only against rappers.

In other words...

The tactic that wasn't even strong enough to meet the burden of proof against white folks in a civil trial has become the nail in the coffin against black folks in a criminal trial.

Word?

Stop and Frisk...everybody is Ok with it as long as its only black and brown folks getting arrested.

Stand you Ground...everybody is Ok with it as long as its not black and brown folks defending themselves.

Its Bill O'Reilly business Fam.

What I'm saying:

Equal Justice Under Law.

That's it and that's all.

 

[x Buddha Bless x]

Personally, it’s stupid as ****. Prosecutors so poor at their job they gotta try lyrics to get their cases won. At the same time all these dudes stupid if they really snitching on themselves and others in raps.

Legally I feel it should be inadmissible. Imagine arresting Leonardo DiCaprio for forging checks and impersonating a pilot or Al Pacino for all the ppl he has murdered.

Shouldn’t be treating raps like confessions no matter how much a ***** say he real especially now. Way more fakes in the game now than ever.

 

[mr jordan04]

People acting like a DA throws on random new albums to see who they wanna arrest that week

 

[Present]