Rahul Bali
,
Meimei Xu
| WABE
February 7th, 2025
Georgia legislators filed a bill Tuesday to protect artists from their work being used in criminal proceedings against them.
The bipartisan effort focuses on prosecutors using lyrics against musicians, which legislators say can stifle creative expression. Republican State Rep. Kasey Carpenter of Dalton is lead sponsor of the legislation and the chairman of the House Committee on Creative Arts and Entertainment.
“As a big fan of 90s rap, there’s a lot of lyrics out there that could be incriminating,” Carpenter said. “I’m a big fan of Willie Nelson. He sang about a lot of incriminating things and probably still does every concert. So are we going to allow these people to be creative and speak to their audiences and not use it against them, or are we going to make them think twice before they express themselves?”
House Bill 237 lays out specific guidelines for prosecutors to be able to request lyrics or other creative expression be admissible as evidence.
Lyrics would only count as evidence if the proponent of the evidence could prove that the artist who wrote the lyrics intended to act on the “literal meaning” as their “own thought or statement,” there “is a strong factual nexus” that the lyrics refer to “specific facts of the crime alleged,” the work is relevant to a disputed fact of the case, or there exists “distinct probative value provided by other admissible evidence.”
This means that not all lyrics are safe from being admitted as evidence into court.
“Obviously there’s a line that says, ‘I’m gonna go shoot Johnny,’ and then you go shoot Johnny, then obviously, yeah, there’s a line, but you know you ought to be able to record things and it not be used against you or at least have to prove to the judge and the other counsel that it is relevant before you present it to a jury,” he said.
A similar effort last year was led by Democrats, but failed. Joining Carpenter on H.B. 237 this session are Republican State Rep. Trey Kelley, Democratic State Rep. Eric Bell, who led last session’s version of the bill, Republican State Rep. Tyler Smith and Democratic State Rep. Spencer Frye.
Just this December, gang and racketeering trial against Atlanta rapper Young Thug and other co-defendants ended, making it the longest-running in Georgia’s history.
The original indictment used lyrics from Young Thug’s work as evidence, and a judge ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could use said lyrics but only as part of other evidence, despite a motion from Young Thug’s lawyer that attempted to prevent the lyrics’ use in court.
Carpenter said no particular trial or case motivated him to propose the bill, adding that part of the reason why he brought it forward was because he saw similar legislation in the country. California and Louisiana have passed laws restricting the use of lyrics as evidence, and there have been attempts in other states to pass such laws. Democratic U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson from Georgia was a cosponsor of the national Restoring Artistic Protection Act and has introduced it twice, though the bill never passed.
“Surely there’s more evidence than a rap song to prosecute somebody. If that’s what you’re hanging on here, then good luck,” Carpenter said. “I think at the end of the day, we have to protect First Amendment rights and freedom of speech and artistic expression, right?”
