The sprawling Young Thug gang trial in Atlanta is set to continue after a judge rejected requests for a mistrial — though he also warned prosecutors against suppressing evidence and ordered them to receive remedial training about the requirements of due process.
In a pair of rulings issued Thursday (August 8), the judge Paige Reese Whittaker dismissed the last two remaining mistrial motions related to revelations of a secret meeting between the former chief justice, prosecutors and a key witness named Kenneth Copeland.
This incident has already reached the judge Ural Glanville is removed from the case. But in her rulings Thursday, Whitaker said the secret “ex parte” meeting was not enough to force prosecutors to start over after 20 months of trial.
In practical terms, the rulings mean witness testimony can resume on Monday (August 12) after an eight-week delay caused by the secret meeting and its aftermath. But even before that delay, the trial was not expected to conclude until early next year.
Thug – real name Jeffery Williams – and dozens of others were indicted in May 2022 over claims that their YSL was not actually a label called Young Stoner Life but a violent Atlanta gang called Young Slime Life. Citing Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), prosecutors allege the group ran a criminal enterprise that committed murders, carjackings, armed robberies, drug trafficking and other crimes over a decade.
The trial began in January 2023 but has faced repeated delays and interruptions, including an unprecedented 10 months of jury selection, the stabbing of another defendant and now the uproar over the ex parte meeting and Glanville's removal. Throughout the process, Young Thug remained in jail. last week, Whitaker denied a new bid for bail.
In their motions for a mistrial, defense lawyers argued that the secret meeting violated the so-called Brady rule – a basic requirement in US criminal law that prosecutors must turn over evidence that could help defendants. Specifically, defense attorneys say they should have been told that, during the secret meeting, Cowland stated that he had “never been honest a day in my life.”
In one of her rulings Thursday, Whitaker said the failure to notify defense attorneys about Copeland's statement was “likely inadvertent” and not a “deliberate violation.” However, he sharply criticized prosecutors for it.
“For a defense attorney, that nugget from a key state's witness is gold,” Whitaker said. “Therefore, when the prosecution not only failed to reduce that statement to a written and produced statement, but also argued in court filings that the defense had no right to know the contents of the ex parte proceeding, that amounted to suppression, willful or not, of that which was objectively Brady's impeachment material.”
Since Copeland's statements were eventually revealed to defense attorneys, and they can still use them to challenge his credibility to jurors in future proceedings, Whitaker said prosecutors' actions did not “technically” amount to an actual violation of the Brady rule. But once again, he warned prosecutors of any repeats.
“The fact that a violation of a defendant's constitutional rights has been avoided is, under the circumstances, no cause for celebration,” the judge wrote. “What it provides is cause for sober reflection and examination of processes, procedures and approaches that allowed this potentially unintentional but nonetheless serious Brady error to occur.”
Citing the fact that it was “not the first allegation of misconduct in this case,” Whitaker also took an unusual step: She ordered prosecutors to sit for additional training on disclosing evidence.
“The court … orders, as a remedial measure, that the entire prosecution team working on this trial undergo training regarding Brady and other professional duties of a prosecutor,” the judge wrote. “This training will consist of a video replay of the 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 decision.
