Superior Court upholds rapper’s conviction
Appeal unsuccessfully argued that lyrics shouldn’t have been allowed as evidence
Ontario’s highest court has upheld the right of the prosecution to use an accused’s rap lyrics to help convict him of first-degree murder.
The Court of Appeal on Thursday released a decision rejecting Lamar Skeete’s attempt to overturn his 2012 conviction.
A Toronto jury found the rapper killed Kenneth Mark on Dec. 29, 2009, to exact revenge for testifying that Skeete and his brother had shot him a year earlier.
One of Skeete’s three grounds of appeal was that the trial judge wrongly allowed his rap lyrics to be entered into evidence. Skeete recorded his rap while in jail and posted it on a website. It included the lyric: “Real niggaz don’t crack to the coppers.”
Skeete’s appeal lawyer argued the trial judge — Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer, who recently joined the Court of Appeal — erred because he gave insufficient consideration to the context in which the words were spoken.
He also failed to consider that the words were artistic expression and undervalued the prejudicial effect of the evidence, the appellant lawyer argued.
Three Ontario Court of Appeal judges disagreed, saying they are satisfied the trial judge properly admitted the evidence of the rap lyric.
In their judgment, Justice David Watt, writing for the panel, noted that while there is no specific rule on admissibility relating to rap lyrics in a criminal trial, the admission depends on their “relevance, materiality” and both tests were met here.
“In this case, evidence of the rap lyrics assisted in proof of the appellant’s retaliatory motive for killing Kenneth Mark. As a result, the evidence was material.”
The trial judge also provided the jury with “careful limiting instructions,” reminding them lyrics “were a form of artistic expression and may not represent the belief of the appellant,” Watt wrote.
David Tanovich, a University of Windsor law professor, wrote in an email to the Star that there is a danger of prosecutors using rap in court cases “because of a misunderstanding of the nature of rap and because the lyrics may trigger or confirm the juror’s stereotypes about young black men.”
He has researched and written about the topic.
“In this case, I don’t see how this evidence had any probative value . . . given that the code of silence is a common theme in rap music,” Tanovich wrote.
“The real issue is whether he (Skeete) acted on it.”
Because systemic racism is a serious problem in the justice system, courts should only permit rap lyrics in “exceptional cases,” he added.