One of the defining Atlanta rappers of his generation is no longer welcome in Atlanta.
Following a surprise guilty plea last Thursday in a gang conspiracy and racketeering case that had already lasted nearly three years, the musician Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, was given 48 hours to vacate the Atlanta metro area, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, for the next decade.
Once the chart-topping face of Atlanta’s ever-evolving music scene, Mr. Williams, 33, may now return only briefly, under strict circumstances: for the anti-gun and anti-gang presentations he is required to make to local youth four times annually, or for the weddings, funerals, graduations or medical emergencies of his immediate family members.
Mr. Williams’s banishment from his hometown was just one of 12 special conditions that he agreed to as part of a plea deal that allowed him to be released from jail that very evening. But can an international hip-hop star pick up where he left off under a new set of strict provisions that could reshape his lyrics, persona and pool of collaborators?
According to experts, the length and intensity of Mr. Williams’s probation could present complications down the line, given the requirements of his profession and the vagueness or subjectivity of some of the rules that now govern his life.
The judge in the case — who was given full discretion to decide on a punishment because Mr. Williams’s lawyers and prosecutors could not agree on a sentence even if he pleaded guilty — decided on time served and 15 years of probation, with an additional 20 years of prison time hanging over Mr. Williams’s head if he violates the agreement.
Along the way, Mr. Williams must agree to be searched at any time; take random drug tests; refrain from promoting gangs in any way; and avoid associating with known gang members, excluding his brother, the musician Quantavious Grier, who is known as Unfoonk; and Sergio Kitchens, or Gunna, a rapper signed to Mr. Williams’s label. (Both Mr. Grier and Mr. Kitchens took plea deals in the same case ahead of trial.)
Mr. Williams had faced up to 120 years in prison if found guilty of the charges against him, which included conspiracy to violate Georgia’s racketeering law and leading his YSL crew as a criminal street gang. He pleaded no contest to those counts, and guilty to six other charges, including participation in criminal street gang activity and the possession of drugs and an illegally modified machine gun.
“You don’t often see probation for these kinds of charges,” said Fiona Doherty, a professor at Yale Law School who has written about the probation system. “These are kind of supercharged conditions of probation, as a plea bargaining tool to get out of prison.”
“Because of that,” Ms. Doherty added, “the person doesn’t have a lot of leverage, and they chose to subject themselves to conditions that make them very vulnerable to incarceration going forward.”
She pointed to Mr. Williams’s waiving of his Fourth Amendment rights — allowing the search of his “person, residence, vehicles, and electronics” at any time, even without reasonable suspicion — which “invites enormous policing powers during these 15 years,” Ms. Doherty said. “That is a very significant decision to give up those rights. It’s not uncommon to see that in the probation context, but it just shows how people on probation have deeply limited freedom compared to other people.”
A lawyer for Mr. Williams, Brian Steel, said after sentencing last week that he would have preferred to hold out for a jury verdict, but that the much-delayed trial — already the longest in Georgia history — was “holding this man hostage.” His client had even rejected an earlier deal from prosecutors, Mr. Steel said, that would have “let him out of custody” because “they would have a tether around him so tight that it’s unconscionable.”
But the ruling by the Fulton County judge, Paige Reese Whitaker, came with its own strictures, raising concerns that even by performing his previously released music — some of which was used as evidence — Mr. Williams could be seen as violating the condition that he not use “any hand sign, terminology, or language that promotes or represents any criminal street gang, directly or indirectly.” At trial, his trademark subject matter and go-to slang, like “slatt” and “slime,” were repeatedly linked to gang culture.
Judge Whitaker said in court that while the rap industry resembled “a modern-day version of WWE wrestling,” complete with posturing and exaggeration, “it has tremendous impact on kids and young people, who think, ‘This is cool, this is what I want to do.’”
In a media appearance last week, Keith Adams, another lawyer for Mr. Williams, said his client has “got to be careful,” adding, “There are clearly some lyrics in previous songs that make reference to YSL, and I think he’s going to have to be a bit more careful about what he does in regards to that.”
Still, the vagueness of the rules could prove challenging, said James M. Binnall, a professor of law and criminality at California State University, Long Beach, who has focused on probation and parole.
“If you’re describing your criminal lifestyle as a street gang member in the past, that’s different than promoting it, right?” he said. “Is he allowed to describe that life? Does that amount to promotion? He can’t comply with these conditions unless he knows what is or is not allowable.”
Mr. Binnall said such questions, while potentially addressable in future probation modification requests, might “create a situation where it’s going to be nearly impossible for him to comply with all of these rules for 15 years.”
In general, courts are granted broad power to set the terms of probation. But if conditions interfere with a constitutional right, that can be a factor as a judge decides what exactly qualifies as a violation.
Earlier this year, a judge in Louisiana ruled in a case involving the veteran rapper B.G., born Christopher Dorsey, who served more than a decade in prison on weapons and obstruction charges. In negotiating the terms of his supervised release, prosecutors argued that B.G.’s recent songs included lyrics “glorifying murder, drug dealing, and threatening those who cooperate with the police,” echoing “the conduct that led to the defendant’s imprisonment,” and sought to ban him from “promoting” such behavior.
The judge found that preemptively censoring B.G.’s speech would be overly broad and potentially unconstitutional. But she ordered him to provide his probation office with any lyrics “in advance of his production or promotion of such song, and that those lyrics be shared with the Government,” which could then argue against them individually.
Collaboration within hip-hop, too, could pose a risk for artists like Young Thug and B.G., because they are barred from associating with certain individuals, even as a gangster image remains a default in mainstream rap. That condition, too, represents a potential gray area.
“Just because someone says they’re a gang member — is that verified?” Mr. Binnall said. “In this industry, we all know about posers — there’s probably a good bet that many of these folks who claim to have gang affiliations either don’t any longer or never did in the first place.”
In court, Mr. Williams insisted to Judge Whitaker that he was smarter now and could find “more things to rap about.” He added, “I’ve experienced a lot of good things.”
However, his father, Jeffery Williams Sr., took issue with the 10-year ban from Atlanta. “To have a district attorney take that away from him,” he said, “to see her take a man away from where he’s from, to have to go live somewhere else, that’s offensive to me.”
The Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, said that while she disagreed with the deal, “hope springs eternal that he will do well, because if not, he’s going to land himself in prison for another 20 years.”
The risks of a wide-ranging probation are not applicable only to Mr. Williams’s case, though they may be especially acute for him.
“In some ways this is a bizarre, unique case,” said Charis Kubrin, a criminologist who studies the use of rap in trials and was listed as a potential expert witness for the defense. “On the other hand,” she added, “the length of time, the range of conditions — all of that is reflective of a larger system of probation that has just grown in the U.S. and really become a quagmire.”
The post Banned From Atlanta: The Challenges of Young Thug’s Unique Probation appeared first on New York Times.
