Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural D. Glanville on June 18, 2024 (Law&Crime). Inset: Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams (Law&Crime).
The scandal-plagued Fulton County legal establishment is facing yet another ethical stress test due to another round of alleged judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in the racketeering (RICO) prosecution against Jeffery “Young Thug” Williams and others.
On Wednesday, details of a second, secret, ex parte meeting between since-recused Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Ural D. Glanville and the two prosecutors in charge of the long-running case were revealed in a supplement to a defense motion for a mistrial.
The revelations come two weeks after Glanville was removed from the case over another secret, ex parte meeting between himself and Deputy District Attorneys Adriane Love and Simone Hylton.
The judge’s controversial time at the helm of the nearly two-year-long proceeding was marked by frequent allegations the court was acting like a member of the prosecution team, during which Glanville was accused of displaying a decided quotient of animus for some of the defense attorneys.
Wednesday’s news is not likely to dissipate that image of the Fulton County court system.
The secret meeting that forms the basis of the latest defense motion was actually the first such secret meeting — it occurred on June 7, according to the motion. The secret meeting that previously all but blew up the trajectory of the case occurred on June 10.
In each instance, however, the secret meetings concerned the testimony of the state’s star witness, Kenneth “Lil Woody” Copeland, who reluctantly took the stand only after he was held in contempt and threatened with substantial jail time by both the state and the court.
The new transcript shows Love and Hylton discussing Copeland’s former attorney, John Melnick, in a disparaging fashion after Copeland pleaded the Fifth Amendment and was thrown in jail.
At one point, Love says: “Ms. Hylton, she’s about to lose her mind because her biggest concern is that Mr. Melnick is actively harming a human being, and that’s what she’s maddest about. I’m mad because it is stopping our trial and it’s wrong, and that is not how the law is supposed to work.”
Glanville responds by telling the prosecutors he understands their concerns but is limited in the remedy he can provide — before pivoting and invoking the specter of “outside agitators” somehow wreaking havoc in the case.
This allegation appears to be unsupported but the prosecutor agrees.
A portion of a transcript in the Young Thug RICO case during which the former judge and a prosecutor discuss “outside agitators” (Defense motion).
Defense attorney Douglas Weinstein, on behalf of Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, focuses the filing on the “outside agitators” claim — including a quote from Berkeley Law professor and historian Dylan C. Penningroth about how the term “delegitimizes internal dissent against the status quo.”
The filing characterizes the “outside agitators” claim as Glanville “making outrageous allegations against members of the defense teams.” The filing goes on to say such “outrageous conversation” is evidence of the trial being unfair.
“It is not a fair trial when in an ex parte meeting Glanville, Love, and Hylton gossip like yentas over 13 pages of transcript about Attorneys Schardt, Melnick, and Steel,” the supplement argues. “It is not a fair trial when in an ex parte meeting Glanville, Love, and Hylton assassinate the character of attorney Melnick and attack his integrity, alleging that he is not acting in the best interest of his client, Copeland.”
The filing repeatedly accuses the court of bias permeating the trial in other ways as well — including an allegation that one of the prosecutors lied to the court about an email she received from Copeland’s former attorney.
“A reading of the rough transcript highlights that which has been obvious to all observers, except for Kendrick’s counsel, for the past 19 months,” the defense motion reads. “Judge Glanville has been willfully biased and acting as a member of the prosecution team since the inception of this case. Kendrick’s counsel takes no pleasure in alerting this Honorable Court to this situation, but client obligations require it. Due process requires a fair trial.”
In sum, the defense argues, the bias has been overwhelming to the point that the case should be dismissed with prejudice.
“How many violations of the Georgia Code of Judicial Conduct does it take to get a mistrial with prejudice?” the defense motion continues. “This case is like an old house that the present Honorable Judge is tasked with renovating. Every time a piece of pasted-up wallpaper is removed more rot is found hidden underneath. No herculean effort by the present Court can fix the Due Process violations of the last Judge. This house must be torn down. A mistrial should be declared and retrial barred due to prosecutorial and judicial misconduct that has goaded Kendrick into the present motion.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
