Jeffery Lamar Williams, known professionally as Young Thug, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He’s considered to be an influential figure of his generation (Gen. Y/Millennials), and his music has impacted the modern sound of hip hop and trap music.
In May 2022, Thug was arrested in Atlanta on gang-related charges. As NBC reported, he was one of 28 people named in an indictment that accuses them of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by engaging in gang activity allegedly connected to multiple murders, shootings and a string of home invasions over the course of almost a decade.
His trial is about to start, so 600 people had been called for potential jury duty.
A woman from Fulton County, identified only as Juror #64, was scheduled to report for jury selection on the Young Thug case in mid-January but didn’t show up. When the judge managed to contact her, she told him she was on vacation in the Dominican Republic.
Juror #64 said that she emailed a copy of her travel itinerary to jury services before her trip, believing that would make her in compliance with her duties.
However when the woman got back that Thursday, deputies took her into custody.
“I didn’t really know I was in violation until the sheriff showed up,” she said. “I thought I was following directions.”
Judge Ural Glanville, who is presiding over the case, told the woman he understood that people, “can’t be in two places at one time,” but that several other prospective jurors had “lost hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to be here,” while she went on vacation.
Judge Glanville originally threatened to hold the woman in contempt of court. That would typically comes with a $1,000 fine, 20 days in jail or both. However while in discussion with the woman, she mentioned she was a college graduate.
With that, Glanville, in order to “purge herself of this contempt,” ordered Juror #64 to write a 30-page essay on the importance of serving on a jury.
“Here’s the criteria: you have to do APA style, you’re going to have to use at least 10 primary sources, 10 secondary sources,” the judge said.
He said that the essay must address the history of jury service and who could not serve on a jury in the past, as well as jury service in Georgia and discrimination in jury selection, noting that “years ago, people that looked like us [both Juror #64 and Judge Glanville are Black] couldn’t serve on juries. It was prohibited.”
Judge Glanville also said that the essay would be run through plagiarism-checking software. “You’ve got to write it yourself, and then you’re going to come back and talk to me about it,” he told her.
(BTW, Young Thug has been accused of masterminding a criminal gang under the Young Slime Life banner, while Thugger’s lawyers have argued that YSL is simply a music label.)
Our take on it
Of course, the process of jury duty, and how to make the courts know you aren’t available when selected, will vary from court to court.
In the state of Georgia, they have an entire web page devoted to serving on jury duty.
The Superior Court of Fulton County also has its own page that covers if you need to defer, change or apply for an exemption of jury duty. It says:
- To defer or postpone your jury service one (1) time only, please contact us. Email is the best way to reach us info.juryservices@fultoncountyga.gov
- Alternatively, you can leave us a message at (404) 613-7430, and we will return your call.
So apparently Juror #64 did what the page said – she emailed them. But since contempt of court is a possibility if one doesn’t show up for jury duty, why didn’t she, I dunno, make sure they received the email, were OK with it, etc?
It’s certainly an interesting punishment, though. Bet she’ll never do that again!
Feature Photo: Jury duty by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free
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7 comments
Simple, use chatgpt to write the essay.
It’s an abuse of power by the judge and the reason why contempt of court is an illegitimate charge and there can be no justice in the justice system until judges are banned from charging someone with it. The judge serves as cop, prosecutor, judge, and juror. It’s a violation of due process and separation of powers. A judge arbitrarily and capriciously decides to hold someone in contempt instead of multiple independent parties (prosecutor, juror, a different judge, and a cop who investigates) making the determination. Just because a judge doesn’t like you means you can be arbitrarily jailed over something that’s ridiculous or innocuous. Court officers should arrest judges who hold people in contempt and not citizens when court officers recognize a judge is abusing his power and criminally violating the rights of citizens which is a crime. They never do. They are complicit. The sheriff likewise should have opened an investigation into the judge for abuse of power instead of arresting the citizen. Of course they are rubber stamps for abuse.
The judge has proven him or herself to push an ideological narrative by making someone discuss race. That’s another abuse. How about if the citizen does not agree with the premise that jury duty is important. That means a citizen is criminalized for his or her thoughts.
agreed
I looked the APA style and it’s double spaced. 30 pages is not very hard to write. The topic is broad enough.
If there was a 2 week trial and I could choose between a 30 page paper and a juror on the entire trial, I would easily choose the paper.
Ignoring a jury duty summons risks legal consequences arising from doing so. And not properly responding to a jury summons and acting accordingly in the eyes of the court or its officers has consequences.
Diversion and deferred prosecution agreements have long been allowed to be adopted by judges under both common law tradition and statutory law. That this happens to someone who prioritized leaving the jurisdiction to take a vacation without properly getting a waiver from the court/court clerk/secretary elicits no sympathy from me given what I have done to do my duty as a citizen when called to jury duty.
Being offered a diversion from being found in contempt of court is an appropriate action by a court not interested in locking up more people than minimally necessary and giving yet more people a lifelong criminal record that can disrupt their whole life.
John Anderson,
Jury duty is important in the eyes of the laws, and ignoring legally-required duty has legal consequences. Don’t like the law, then try to get the law changed. As with jury duty, so as with taxes you may not like to pay — to ignore the legally-required service performance is to do so at legal peril that can hit your purse/wallet or even get you locked up behind bars.
Ignoring a jury duty summons has legal consequences for doing so. And not properly responding to a jury summons and acting accordingly has consequences. Diversion and deferred prosecution agreements have long been allowed under both common law tradition and statutory law, and this hitting someone who prioritized a vacation without properly getting a waiver from the court/court clerk/secretary elicits no sympathy from me given what I have done to do my duty as a citizen when called to jury duty.