Professor Anthony Michael Kreis teaches constitutional law at Georgia State University and authored the book ‘Rot and Revival: The History of Constitutional Law in American Political Development.’ As a legal scholar and Georgia taxpayer, he found himself captivated by the YSL gang and racketeering trial – a record-breaking proceeding that cost untold millions and became the longest running criminal trial in Georgia history.
Kreis has been following the trial since the beginning. After the jury finally reached with its verdict Tuesday, rejecting the main gang, conspiracy and murder charges at the heart of the high-profile prosecution, he weighs in on why the trial was a “drain on everybody’s resources.”
I started watching the YSL trial out of pure curiosity. As a Fulton County resident, an avid music listener, and a legal scholar naturally interested in how the law works, I found it impossible not to be drawn into the proceedings now and then. I’m not a criminal law scholar, but I do study the development of American democracy and how law and politics interact. That academic interest focused my attention on another headline-grabbing Fulton County prosecution: the 2020 election interference charges against Donald Trump and his alleged co-conspirators. The Fulton County District Attorney used Georgia’s racketeering statute in that indictment as well. So, initially, my goal in observing was to understand what a Georgia racketeering case with multiple defendants would look like in anticipation of what mattered to me: a prosecution with implications for the very meaning of American democracy.
I was mindful of the many layers of constitutional law involved in the YSL case. I was very concerned, for example, about how rap lyrics would be used as evidence of criminality. The idea of law enforcement officers critiquing music like a first-year college literature course – but actually as state’s evidence – has never felt right to me. It’s contrary to our First Amendment free speech values. Under the Sixth Amendment, defendants must have legal representation, an indispensable necessity in our adversarial system. But, when trials last for nearly a year, it is harder for defendants to pay for lawyers and for lawyers to be adequately compensated. Public defenders are overworked and underpaid. You do not need to be a criminal law professor to appreciate the problem of a trial that drags on seemingly forever.
But, for me, the most widespread damage came from this trial’s cascading effects on the entire system. The trial lasted a year, from opening statements until the verdict. That was a courtroom devoted to one group of defendants for a year. That was a judge whose time was wholly soaked up. Some of the best and brightest Atlanta-area criminal defense attorneys were entirely preoccupied. It was a drain on everybody’s resources. How many other trials could have been held during that year had this trial been more efficient? How many people were left waiting for trials longer than necessary? How many people have languished in county jail without being convicted of anything because of the backlog that already existed and that this certainly did not help alleviate? That last question strikes at the heart of a broken system. Far too many people are currently incarcerated, awaiting trial, in conditions that the U.S. Department of Justice found to be violating the constitutional rights of inmates.
This trial had issues from the start. It was painful to watch the state’s opening. There needed to be a straightforward narrative. There needed to be a sense of purpose. There needed to be a buttoned-down theory of criminality. These things never came from prosecutors. And things did not get better later on. It often seemed like the state was throwing spaghetti at the wall, hoping something would stick. I could not help but wonder what jurors were making of it all. These were jurors asked to give up months of their life. At least present them with a cohesive theory of criminal liability.
What amazed me most, however, was the large number of people watching and tracking the trial. Many people were interested in the trial because of the personalities involved. They were curious because they were fans of Young Thug. They were captivated by the intersection of law and celebrity. That was never me. I was more aligned with the many law professors and practicing attorneys who followed along because of the trial’s oddities — from how the rules of evidence were used to the constitutional issues presented to controversies about professional responsibility and judicial ethics.
Many people walked away with similar concerns about wasted resources, dangerous jail conditions, and heavy-handed prosecutions.
But no matter why we watched, many people walked away with similar concerns about wasted resources, dangerous jail conditions, and heavy-handed prosecutions. We all want public safety. We want justice to prevail. We all want victims’ interests vindicated. We all want to deter people from wrongdoing. But it can’t come at the expense of our constitutional values, which must transcend everything.
We are in a challenging moment in American politics where diverging and polarized views of how to wield the criminal justice system are plentiful. Many progressives want wholesale systematic reform on one side, and many conservatives demand a strict law-and-order mentality on the other. Trials like this highlight the dire need for fundamental reforms, but our politics of criminal justice reform seem hopelessly intractable. There is a real danger when people simultaneously lose faith in institutions and do not see a path of meaningful change. Yes, the monetary cost for the YSL trial is surely in the multiple millions. But the real tragedy is the damage this has inflicted on the integrity of our criminal justice system and people’s faith in its fairness. We can’t quantify that.
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