From [HERE] Should someone’s creative work be used against them in a criminal trial? That was the question presented before the Maryland Court of Appeals earlier this year after rap lyrics sang in a jailhouse phone call were part of the state’s effort to convict Lawrence Montague of murder.

“I’ll be playin’ the block bitch  

And if you ever play with me 

I’ll give you a dream, a couple shots snitch  

It’s like hockey pucks the way I dish out this 

It’s a .40 when that bitch goin’ hit up shit”

These words, uttered by the defendant, recorded by someone outside the jail, posted on Instagram and played ad nauseam during Montague’s trial, helped the state convince a jury the 27-year-old Annapolis native was guilty of second degree murder in a drug deal gone wrong. 

The case is both a warning and a reminder of how the criminal justice system has used hip hop’s often raw and criminal thematic leanings in criminal proceedings despite the possibility of it unfairly prejudicing the defendant. 

In a lengthy opinion released just before Christmas, Maryland Court of Appeals Judge Joseph Getty wrote for the majority of the seven-member panel that the details in Montague’s rap were uniquely probative, or relevant, despite other courts’ nationwide wariness of admitting such evidence. 

But between the timing of the recording, three-weeks before trial with lyrics threatening “snitches” like the witness set to testify against him, and the mention of .40 caliber bullets which were used in the murder, the lower court judge would not have been alone in finding the rap relevant to the case, the judge said.

“While rap lyric evidence often has prejudicial effect as improper propensity evidence of a defendant’s bad character, those concerns are diminished when the lyrics are so akin to the alleged crime that they serve as ‘direct proof’ of the defendant’s involvement,” Getty wrote.

His noting of the prejudicial nature of rap further enshrines the concerns expressed by Montague’s lawyer and other defense attorneys since the genre’s rise in the 80s and 90s. And there’s reason for that concern; the use of rap lyrics to paint a defendant as violent can reflect discrepancies within the criminal justice system. 

Tyler Mann is the Townson-based attorney who represented Montague at trial. The lawyer took issue with several parts of the rap’s use as evidence, but he admitted the tactic, which involved playing the muffled recording on repeat and pointing to details from the crime that lined up on a whiteboard while it played, was a smart move. 

“There was scant other evidence in the case,” he said, arguing the witness had a troubled past, but the rap’s mention of threatening a “snitch” helped create the image of his client silencing a witness to protect himself.

“It was a tough loss,” he said. “The rap was the nail in the coffin so to speak.”

Getty offered a well-researched analysis of why Montague’s words should be allowed in despite other courts finding otherwise.

He cited 2014’s New Jersey v. Skinner in which lyrics in a notebook written by rapper Vonte Skinner were used to convict him of murder. But the state’s highest court eventually overturned the ruling and found the lyrics failed to offer details related to the crime and instead only showed “a propensity toward committing, or at the very least glorifying, violence and death.” [MORE]