I asked Hamasaki what role social media played in Drakeo’s case. “You’re giving me PTSD,” he sighed. “I think we had 4 terabytes of discovery. DMs, photos, videos. Backup accounts on Instagram or Twitter. Everything they can capture electronically now, they do. The point is, prosecutors can go in and pick out excerpts from here and there to paint a picture. From the defence, you are coming in and have to fill in the picture”. Using those lyrics and social media, prosecutors will try to build on YSL’s history as a hierarchical criminal organization.
Hamasaki added that the use of social media as evidence does not only occur in well-known cases. “Social media is a regular tool in law enforcement’s toolbox,” he said, adding that police departments are regularly issued arrest warrants using social media activity. festival. “They’ll put it in legal language, but they’re basically saying, ‘This’ – on social media – ‘is evidence of crime X.’ Warrants are granted on it several times a day, every day. “
The indictment in the Thug and Gunna case is rife with seemingly damning charges against their 26 co-conspirators, including the murder of young rapper YFN Lucci and aggravated assault on an elderly politician , Lil Wayne. There are also allegations of possession of cocaine and oxycodone.
If there was evidence of these allegations, then Fulton County prosecutors would probably have a strong case against those accomplices. But the way in which those alleged crimes are tied to Gunna, aka Sergio Kitchens, and Thug, aka Jeffery Williams, is through content posted online. The indictment repeated several versions of the following: “Defendant JEFFERY WILLIAMS, an associate of YSL, appeared in a video released on social media titled ‘Eww’, in which Defendant said that ‘Red was like Elmo but never ‘giggle’…a public act to further the conspiracy. “
I asked Hamasaki if he thought the prosecutors in the Drakeo case were making their arguments in good faith. Do they sincerely believe that a song about killing someone equates to an admission of guilt? Choosing his words carefully, Hamasaki said, “I have struggled to see that they cannot reliably separate fact from fiction.”
In cases like created against Thug, Gunna and YSL, the definition of artistic expression became a matter of controversy. After they were arrested, Willis noted that the First Amendment was a “precious” American right but still “doesn’t protect people from prosecutors using it as evidence, if it were so. ” But as Gunna’s lawyer said, “There is a serious problem that the state relies on lyrics as part of the allegations. These lyrics are an artist’s creative expression rather than a literal retelling of events and circumstances. “
Producer JoogSZN is Drakeo’s collaborator and friend. “This is the only art form that is seen as an autobiography rather than an art form,” he said. A few months before Drakeo was released from prison, Joog and Drakeo broke up. Thank you for using GTL, a critically-acclaimed album recorded over the phone through the jail-calling service Global Tel Link has a mining price. Joog spoke to Drakeo daily during his incarceration, and he says their conversation was filled with laughter as they swirled around basic skepticism about the prosecutor’s case.
