Essay 1429

From The New York Times…

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Rap Takes Center Stage at Trial in Killing of Two Detectives

By MICHAEL BRICK

When the police arrested Ronell Wilson in 2003, a day and a half after two undercover detectives were shot in the back of the head, they found scraps of paper in his pocket with handwritten rap lyrics that bragged about a killing.

Prosecutors at Mr. Wilson’s trial at Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where he faces the death penalty, say the lyrics amount to a confession written after the shootings.

“In that rap song,” said Colleen Kavanagh, a federal prosecutor, “the defendant identifies himself by his nickname, ‘Rated R,’ and brags about shooting his victim in the back of the head.”

The scraps of paper were formally introduced as evidence yesterday, between testimony from the city’s chief medical examiner and the investigating officers. Alongside such standard evidence, rap lyrics have come up repeatedly in the first two weeks of the trial, most notably in testimony from a federal agent who recited a gang member’s violent, profanity-laden verses for the jury in a halting monotone.

Prosecutors are making similar arguments across the country this year, in courtrooms in Albany, Oroville, Calif., College Station, Tex., and Gretna, La. Set to drumbeats or scrawled in notebooks, the rhymes of minor stars, aspiring producers and rank amateurs are being accepted as evidence of criminal acts, intent and mind-set.

Defense lawyers usually argue that the lyrics are boastful fantasies, common to the point of irrelevance. Mr. Wilson’s lawyers have indicated that they plan to call a scholar named Yasser Arafat Payne, described in court documents as a rap expert, to make a similar argument.

Over more than a decade, rap has evolved as a tool for both the prosecution and defense in criminal trials.

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