Nearly two years after jury selection began in the gang and racketeering trial involving Atlanta rapper Young Thug, prosecutors and defense attorneys delivered their closing arguments Monday, bringing to a close the longest trial in Georgia’s history.
Only two defendants — Deamonte Kendrick and Shannon Stillwell — remain in the case. Young Thug and three other “Young Slime Life” members pleaded guilty.
Defense attorneys said YSL was simply Young Thugs record label. But prosecutors described YSL as a violent gang with a popular leader. The group wreaked havoc on Atlanta’s streets for nearly a decade, they said Monday, killing at least three rival gang members in the process.
Attorneys for Kendrick and Stillwell sought to poke holes in the state’s case, introducing doubt wherever possible as they recapped the last 12 months of grueling testimony. They accused prosecutors of calling unreliable witnesses, some of whom admitted to lying to investigators in an effort to protect themselves.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The case is expected to head to the jury Tuesday.
Kendrick and Stillwell rejected plea offers after more than a week of tense negotiations, opting instead to take their cases to the jury. Both defendants declined to present evidence or introduce any witnesses before closing arguments.
‘Destruction and death’
Prosecutor Christian Adkins started out by discussing the state’s RICO Act and telling jurors what they should look for as they deliberate. He said YSL could be summed up in four words: deception, intimidation, destruction and death.
“In Fulton County, no one is above the law and that’s why you’re here,” Adkins told the jury.
He reminded them of the three people allegedly killed by YSL members, Donovan Thomas, Shymel Drinks and Jamari Holmes. Kendrick is charged with murder in Thomas’ death, while Stillwell is charged with murder in the deaths of both Thomas and Drinks.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Adkins scrolled through old social media photos of current and former defendants flashing hand signs or showing off their tattoos.
“They knew exactly what they signed up for when they tattooed YSL on their body and shot at people for YSL,” he said.
Unreliable witnesses
Defense attorneys, meanwhile, sought to introduce doubt by questioning the credibility of the state’s witnesses, especially those who acknowledged lying to investigators.
“Kenneth Copeland is a liar. He is a proven liar,” Attorney Max Schardt said about the state’s star witness. He called Copeland a “self-admitted finesser” and said he made things up to get out of trouble.
Schardt, who represents Stillwell, also took aim at the gang investigators themselves, reminding jurors how combative the state’s “gang experts” became when questioned by defense attorneys on the stand.
“The state hasn’t proven their case and they certainly haven’t proved it beyond a reasonable doubt,” Schardt said.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
For nearly a year, Schardt said, prosecutors have been trying to hammer “a square peg into a round hole.”
The square peg is the state’s evidence, he said, the round hole their violent gang narrative. Schardt said most of those charged in the case came from broken or impoverished homes on Atlanta’s southside.
With few opportunities, many of the defendants committed crimes, he acknowledged. But it wasn’t about advancing a gang, Schardt said. It was about advancing themselves.
“As a whole, we know the struggles that these communities have had,” Schardt said. “A sad, tacit acceptance that it’s either rap, prison or death.”
He also accused law enforcement of threatening alleged YSL members with lengthy prison sentences in order to get them to make up stories about their friends.
“It’s a sick game,” Schardt said. “It is a sick, sick game.”
In his closing arguments, Schardt suggested to the jury that it was Copeland who killed Thomas instead of his client.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
He also used surveillance video and witness testimony to argue that Stillwell couldn’t have killed Drinks. No gunshot residue was found inside Stillwell’s rental car, Schardt said, and a camera appeared to show his client driving away moments before Drinks was fatally shot at a red light.
But prosecutors argued Stillwell fired at least three rounds into Drinks’ Nissan before running the red light and speeding away at 90 mph. Drinks died behind the wheel in the intersection, prosecutors said, and numerous people drove past without calling the police.
Kendrick’s attorney, Doug Weinstein, told jurors his client had become a casualty in the law enforcement’s war against Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, since the two are close friends. He said, like many who grow up in poverty, Kendrick simply wanted to get out of a tough situation. Music, Weinstein said, offered him a chance to improve his life.
“They have to suck him into this vortex caused by their relentless, ridiculous pursuit of Jeffery Williams,” Weinstein said.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
The defense attorney also pushed back on the state’s notion that YSL is a gang. He called the prosecution’s use of rap lyrics as evidence “shameful” and said there were a number of rights that “the state has simply swept away” in this trial.
All the women on the prosecution team coordinated outfits and wore red for closings, Weinstein said, but nobody accuses them of being gang members.
He argued that none of the state’s witnesses or evidence have been able to prove Kendrick is guilty of any of the charged crimes and that Kendrick wasn’t even in the vehicle used in the Thomas homicide.
‘The audacity’
But in her closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Simone Hylton said it was Kendrick who told others where Thomas was in January 2015 when he was gunned down outside an Atlanta barbershop.
She played excerpts from several of Kendrick’s songs in which he allegedly rapped about the murders.
“They have the audacity to think they can just brag about killing somebody and nobody’s gonna hold them accountable,” Hylton told the jury.
She also defended the state’s selection of more than 175 witnesses in the trial. The majority of the witnesses were law enforcement but some were former co-defendants who took plea deals; two are currently in prison for violating the conditions of those deals.
“When you do your gang murder and you brag to your gang member friends about it,” those friends end up on the witness stand, Hylton said.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Once subpoenaed, she said, they “have to confront the people they snitched on in front them.”
“None of these witnesses are gonna come in here and say what they told the police,” she said.
Hylton reminded jurors that several YSL members traveled to Miami immediately after Thomas was killed. Defense attorneys had argued that Young Thug had a show scheduled in Miami, but Hylton said investigators found no fliers corroborating any such performance.
“YSL knew what they did and they had to get up out of dodge,” she said.
Jurors are expected to return to court Tuesday, where they will begin deliberations after receiving instructions from Judge Paige Reese Whitaker. If they have not reached a verdict by the end of Wednesday, they would return next week after the Thanksgiving holiday.
