The Young Thug YSL trial is bizarre.
The sprawling RICO case in Fulton County Superior Court has been repeatedly delayed — first by the unprecedented 10 months it took to seat a jury, then by the holidays and a jailhouse stabbing of one of the defendants. It has been drawn out by line-by-line arguments over the admissibility of rap lyrics and, more recently, by a defense attorney’s claim that a filibustering prosecutor could “talk the ears off a donkey.”
Add to that this week’s complaint by a witness who said he was struggling to answer questions because he was “so high right now, y’all, I’m about to go to sleep on y’all now. I am. I ain’t gonna tell you no lie.”
This may be the most epic moment yet in the Young Thug trial. lmao.
“I’m so high right now y’all I’m about to go to sleep on y’all.”
s/o @ThuggerDaily pic.twitter.com/RV8aCPlIqk
— Meghann Cuniff (@meghanncuniff) March 19, 2024
It’s not like either side was getting much out of Adrian Bean anyway, with most of his testimony liberally peppered with “I don’t remember” and “I can’t recall.” But there he was, admitting in open court, in front of Judge Ural Glanville, that he was high. The prosecution has pressed Bean for details of a September 2013 armed robbery and police chase Young Thug (real name: Jeffery Williams) was allegedly part of, but Bean swears he can’t remember because he spent much of that year high on Molly.
Testifying that he had “straightened out” his life since being released from prison in 2017 in connection with that 2013 crime but then telling the judge he’s stoned might not be convincing.
YSL case gets a motion to speed it up
Nevertheless, Bean’s point about things dragging on drew a co-sign from Doug Weinstein, a lawyer for one of Williams’ co-defendants, Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick. In what is already the longest criminal trial in Georgia history, Weinstein and fellow defense lawyers Katie A. Hingerty and E. Jay Abt filed a motion to speed things up, asking Glanville to exercise his “broad discretion” to limit the number of witnesses, fearing that the trial could drag halfway into 2027.
“The state, after originally proposing a witness list of over 700 witnesses, has a list of over 400 witnesses it intends to present at trial,” the motion says. “To date, the State has presented approximately 40 witnesses since presentation of witnesses began at the end of November. At the present, representative rate, it will take until approximately October 2026 to complete the presentation of State’s witnesses. Thus, the present trial will take well into at least mid-2027 to complete.”
There have been fewer than 50 days of actual legal proceedings since opening arguments on Nov. 27, 2023, and Glanville has kept the jury out of some of them.
“This is simply untenable for the remaining 15 jurors or the defendants who remain jailed and without bond,” the motion reads. “[T]he presentation of another 360 witnesses by the State would cause undue delay, would be a waste of time, and would amount to needless presentation of cumulative evidence.”
It certainly is extending the time Williams is serving behind bars. While prosecutors try to prove that he’s the mastermind and founder of a southside Atlanta gang responsible for assorted drug deals, robberies, and shootings — he counters that it’s merely a record label — Williams has been in jail since May 9, 2022.
“While the State puts on its case, witness by witness, Kendrick and the other Defendants sit in jail,” Weinstein said. “Their lives on hold. The clock ticking on their lives. Second by second. Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day. Month by month. Meanwhile, the risk of a confused jury unable to comprehend a years-long trial only grows.”
It doesn’t shed a good light on Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. As if she isn’t dealing with enough, just having survived an attempt to get her booted from the Donald Trump Georgia election interference case. His lawyers almost certainly will appeal the judge’s ruling that allowed her to remain on the case while kicking special prosecutor Nathan Wade off it.
Now, she has a key witness who is too stoned to help her associates win the YSL case—and while she runs for reelection, Willis could certainly use a high-profile victory.
