N.J. Supreme Court holds session with newly appointed justice

The New Jersey Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Trenton last year.

(Patti Sapone/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — The state Supreme Court ruled today that notebooks filled with gangster rap lyrics written by a man accused of attempted murder cannot be used as evidence to help prove a motive.

A trial court convicted Vonte Skinner of shooting and paralyzing a drug dealer, Lamont Peterson, during a 2005 incident in Willingboro Township — based in part on pages of violent and graphic rap lyrics that police found in a car Skinner was driving at the time.

UPDATE:

N.J. Supreme Court's ruling on gangster rap lyrics gets mixed reception

An appellate court later threw out Skinner's conviction, saying the judge shouldn't have allowed prosecutors for the state to read the lyrics to the jury.

The Supreme Court voted 6-0 today to uphold the appellate ruling and ordered a new trial for Skinner.

Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote that using the lyrics as evidence was "highly prejudicial," "bore little or no probative value" as to any motive in the shooting, and "risked poisoning the jury."

"One would not presume that Bob Marley, who wrote the well-known song 'I Shot the Sheriff,' actually shot a sheriff, or that Edgar Allan Poe buried a man beneath his floorboards, as depicted in his short story 'The Tell-Tale Heart,' simply because of their respective artistic endeavors on those subjects," LaVecchia wrote. "The Court reasons that defendant's lyrics should receive no different treatment."

Civil liberties advocates watched the case closely, saying lyrics are a form of artistic expression and should be protected as free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey wrote a brief in Skinner's support, arguing that rap lyrics are "often a vehicle for social and political commentary" and that admitting these as evidence would run "the risk of chilling otherwise valuable speech."

Skinner was convicted in 2008 of shooting Peterson seven times at close range, leaving the victim paralyzed from the waist down. Peterson testified that he and Skinner sold drugs as part of a three-man team and that the shooting happened after an argument arose.

In his own testimony, Skinner said Peterson was shot by another man.

As part of the trial, prosecutors read from Skinner's lyrics, which depict shootings, knifings, and rapes. One verse read: "A (racial epithet) wouldn't listen so I hit him with the Smithen; hauled off 15 rounds, seven missed him; Two to the mask and six to the ribs, lifted and flipped him. The safe street squad found him, half his shell mission."

But prosecutors did not tell jurors when Peterson wrote them. All the lyrics were written "long before" the shooting — some four or five years before, according to the ruling.

Joseph Glyn, a state deputy attorney general, told the Supreme Court in April that the lyrics were evidence of Skinner's "continuing mindset."

"These lyrics explain why defendant did what he did," Glyn said.

Jason Coe, Skinner's public defender, argued that lyrics could be used as evidence only "when there are particular, detailed accounts about the crime charged." In Indiana, a man who killed his mother and placed her body in the trunk of a car wrote lyrics describing the same actions. The court admitted those words as evidence.

In today's opinion, LaVecchia wrote that lyrics can be used as evidence of guilt if they connect strongly to the details of the crime the defendant is charged with committing or if they mention the victim by name. But, she added, Skinner's lyrics did neither.

"The lyrics can only be regarded as fictional accounts," LaVecchia wrote. "The state has produced no evidence otherwise."

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