Morgan Cardelle Baker (left inset) in a Georgia Department of Corrections mug shot, (right) Club Boss, where Tamarco Head was shot and killed (WGXA/screengrab)
A Georgia inmate convicted two years ago of murdering a nightclub security guard saw the conviction overturned on Tuesday because the Peach State’s highest court ruled that a 33-second rap music video showing him waving around a handgun shouldn’t have been played for Houston County jurors.
Morgan Cardelle Baker, born in 1995, had argued through his lawyers at trial that Kobe Crawford’s — aka NoCap’s — rap music video for “Ghetto Angels” (a song viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube) should not be played in court. Still, the trial court decided the video “filmed in early 2019,” months before Tamarco Head was shot to death at Club Boss in Warner Robins on July 6, 2019, was “more probative than prejudicial” as to Baker. Baker went on to be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in February 2022.
In a 5-2 decision on Tuesday, however, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the decision on the evidence was an “error,” so Baker’s malice murder conviction was overturned.
“As explained below, we agree that the trial court’s admission of the video was an abuse of discretion. And because the State has not met its burden of showing that the error was harmless, we reverse Baker’s conviction,” the court.
The court noted that the music video in question was entered into evidence over the objection of the defense, since the video showed Baker waving around a gun and “sometimes pointing it at the camera”:
On redirect, the prosecutor introduced the 33-second-long portion of the rap music video, which the trial court admitted into evidence over trial counsel’s renewed objection, and the prosecutor played the video for the jury. The first few seconds of the video showed Baker waving a black handgun, pointing it at the camera, and motioning as if he was shooting the gun while three other men rapped and made hand gestures. The video then showed Baker, Crawford, and about a dozen other men singing and dancing on and around a car; Baker waved the black handgun, sometimes pointing it at the camera, while some of the men made hand gestures, held bottles of what appears to be alcohol, and brandished guns. In response to further questions from the prosecutor, [NoCap’s music manager Rodney] Dunn identified Baker as one of the men who was “flashing [a] firearm” and testified that although Dunn did not condone guns, he could not control whether Crawford’s entourage used guns in the music video or whether they carried guns on the night of the shooting. The prosecutor then asked why Crawford “promot[ed]” gun violence in the video, and Dunn responded that Crawford was not promoting it and that Crawford was simply “a rapper.”
Again, over the defense’s objection, prosecutors asserted that the video was needed for identification purposes and for connecting Baker — a close friend and road manager — to Crawford, who performed at the nightclub in the early morning hours just prior to the fatal shooting.
The rap video wasn’t just played in court. Prosecutors repeatedly pressed Baker during cross-examination on why he was “promoting” gun violence in the video and whether his “entourage traveled with guns”:
On cross-examination, Baker testified that he put his arm around the man in the camouflage cap as they walked down the breezeway because Baker was trying to “de-escalate the situation,” since the man was still angry. The prosecutor asked whether the entourage traveled with guns, and Baker responded, “Why would we, though?” The prosecutor said, “Well, let’s see why” and then played the rap music video again. In response to the prosecutor’s questions about the video, Baker testified that he did not produce the video, that it was about “losing loved ones,” that he thought he had “a Glock” gun in the video, he did not know “what kind” of Glock it was, it was not his gun, and he used it in the video because he was “trying to look cool.” When the prosecutor asked why that made him “look cool,” Baker responded, “[I]n the music industry in—in my age group, you do whatever that you think will sell, such as if—if I was to—say I was a country music artist, I probably don’t like cowboy hats or cowboy boots, but I will wear it if I think it’s going to help my country music sell.” The prosecutor asked why Baker was “promoting” gun violence in the video, and he replied that he was not promoting it and was “[j]ust trying to be cool.” The prosecutor then rewound the video and paused it at a point where it depicted Baker; she asked him if the shirt he was wearing said “Loyalty is Love,” and he replied that he did not know. Later, the prosecutor referenced the photo showing Baker on stage with Crawford, gesturing as if he was pointing a gun, and asked if Baker was “[p]ortraying a shooter” “[j]ust like in the video we just watched, with a real gun?” Baker replied that he was “just trying to be cool.”
Taken together, the Georgia Supreme Court found it couldn’t say the rap music video’s inclusion in evidence didn’t sway the jury. Therefore, the court said, the “State has not met its burden of showing that the error was harmless.”
Read the decision here.
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