California on Friday enacted a brand new legislation limiting prosecutors from utilizing rap lyrics as proof in opposition to felony defendants.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a collection of payments, together with AB 2799, which requires a pre-trial listening to to find out if hip-hop lyrics are related to a case. The invoice was accredited by state lawmakers in August.
“For too lengthy, prosecutors in California have used rap lyrics as a handy technique to inject racial bias and confusion into the felony justice course of,” Dina LaPolt, leisure legal professional and co-founder of Songwriters of North America, informed Selection in an announcement. “This laws units up necessary guardrails that may assist courts maintain prosecutors accountable and stop them from criminalizing Black and Brown inventive expression. Thanks, Gov Newsom, for setting the usual. We hope Congress will cross comparable laws, as this can be a nationwide drawback.”
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Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a collection of payments into legislation Friday, together with AB 2799, which bans using rap lyrics as proof in felony trials.
(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Name, Inc by way of Getty Photos)
Meeting member Reginald Jones-Sawyer Sr. championed the invoice, saying it protects rap artists, who’re principally Black and Latino.
“Their stage title is perhaps Little Homicide, however that doesn’t imply they’re a assassin,” Jones-Sawyer beforehand said, Fox San Francisco reported. “We discovered that the lyrics that they have been utilizing within the court docket to prosecute somebody, these weren’t even that individual’s lyrics. It was written by another person. The music was written by another person, and so they have been simply performing it.”
The invoice got here amid the prosecution of Jeffrey Williams, higher often called Younger Thug, and Sergio Kitchens, often called the rapper Gunna. The 2 high-profile rappers have been arrested in Atlanta on gang prices and their lyrics have been quoted in an indictment.
Supporters of the laws mentioned there’s a distinction between rap lyrics and what an artist does in actual life.
Rappers Gunna and Younger Thug had their rap lyrics used in opposition to them after they have been arrested on gang prices in an ongoing trial.
(Picture by Adam Hagy/NBAE)
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“That is about justice. That is about ensuring that the court docket system appears to be like at that particular person and never what individuals take into consideration that particular person,” mentioned Jones-Sawyer.
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