Defense attorneys in the slow-moving “Young Slime Life” gang trial are growing increasingly frustrated with the state’s expansive witness list and what they say is a lackadaisical approach to turning over evidence in the sprawling case.
More than eight months after jury selection began, defense lawyers say they are still waiting on crucial discovery from Fulton County prosecutors — evidence that by law is supposed to be submitted at least 10 days before the start of trial.
Meanwhile, Young Thug’s attorney, Brian Steel, said the prosecution’s witness list has nearly doubled in size since the Jan. 4 start date, making it difficult to defend his client as he and his colleagues prepare for opening statements.
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, is accused of being the leader and co-founder of Young Slime Life, which prosecutors say is a criminal street gang based in South Atlanta. The Grammy-winning rapper, who was among 28 people charged in the case, has been in jail since his May 2022 arrest.
Steel said Monday that the latest list provided by the prosecution contains the names of 632 potential witnesses for the state, 266 more people than were initially listed by the DA’s office back in December.
“I have a major problem now,” Steel told Chief Judge Ural Glanville. “I now have to go back and redo my entire index in this case that has taken me over a year to put together ... This is outrageous to me.”
Defense attorneys say the state has turned over nearly four terabytes of data in 12 separate “dumps,” making it difficult for them to sift through the evidence.
The 12th batch of discovery, turned over in late July, was a mix of photos, videos and documents totaling 303,661 files across 7,542 folders, defense attorney Suri Chadha Jimenez said in a motion last week. It contained 535 gigabytes of data.
In addition, the latest witness list submitted Friday lacks addresses and phone numbers, said Steel, who complained prosecutors were turning over information in “dribs and drabs.”
The investigation into Williams began more than a decade ago, leaving some attorneys to wonder why they’re still receiving years-old discovery this far into jury selection.
“Mr. Williams is now approximately one month from the start of opening statements with 266 new witnesses to locate,” Steel wrote in an emergency motion asking the judge to intervene. “This is outrageous misconduct by the prosecution.”
He called the repeated delays “an abuse of prosecutorial power” and his client’s rights.
Prosecutor Adriane Love said Steel exaggerated the number of newly disclosed witnesses, which she said was fewer than 100. Love told the judge they’ve been submitting updated witness lists throughout the trial, and included 61 more names on Friday.
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
“That’s still a lot,” Glanville told the state. “I concur with Mr. Steel’s concern because that’s a lot of leg work that they have to do, and I have some problems with that. I just do.”
The judge instructed both the prosecution and defense to get together on Friday and “iron out” the discovery and witness lists. He said he may also require prosecutors to provide a cleaned up list with an index for their counterparts.
“That’s a lot of witnesses, and you have some explaining to do as to why the bulk of them weren’t turned over before Dec. 26,” Glanville told the state. “That’s way too many to be unaccounted for so late in the process.“
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