Jury starts taking shape for rapper Young Thug’s Georgia trial

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - More than nine months after the selection and screening process began, a jury began being seated Wednesday in Young Thug’s massive organized crime trial in Atlanta.

A motions hearing had been set for Wednesday morning on whether rap lyrics could be used as evidence in the trial. Instead, Fulton County Chief Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville began the process of actually seating a jury for a trial that is expected to last most of a year.

Glanville said Wednesday he is ready to get the trial underway.

The process of actually seating a jury could take weeks; 48 jurors have been qualified for the trial after thousands of potential jurors have been summoned since January. A court spokesperson said a number of pre-trial motions are still waiting to be heard, and the court is looking to begin opening statements on Nov. 27.

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“Wednesday was mile-marker day,” attorney Joshua Schiffer said. “Prosecutors and defense attorneys began exercising their juror strikes until they get to their final jury.”

Schiffer said a trial could last at least five months “in this extraordinarily unique and complex case.”

Hundreds of potential jurors requested exemptions from service for a variety of reasons: child care and elderly patent care obligations, medical reasons, and professional hardship, among others.

Williams is on trial in Fulton County in a massive RICO case involving himself and eight other defendants. Prosecutors allege Williams and his co-defendants are of the Young Slime Life (YSL) gang, while defense attorneys argue YSL is simply the name of a record label, Young Stoner Life.

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The jury selection has already lasted longer than any other trial in Georgia history, and has been repeatedly plagued by arrests, charges, and disruptions. The trial itself could last for more than a year. Georgia’s longest jury selection and its longest trial both came in the Atlanta Public Schools teacher scandal of 2014-15.

Young Thug is facing eight criminal counts under a federal law that was originally enacted to fight organized crime. Georgia is one of 33 states that has its own RICO law, but in the Peach State, the alleged criminal enterprises do not have to have existed as long as the federal law.