The Georgia Supreme Court has tossed out the murder conviction of a man accused of killing a nightclub bouncer, stating that a rap video used as evidence in the trial should have been excluded. Morgan Baker had been convicted in February 2022 for the 2019 shooting of Tamarco Head outside a Warner Robins nightclub. Baker's work was for a rapper performing that night, as FOX 5 Atlanta reported.
During the proceedings, the prosecutors presented a 33-second clip from the rap video for "Ghetto Angels" that showed Baker holding a firearm. The clip's inclusion was intended to establish Baker's identity. Yet, the defense argued it would inflict undue prejudice upon the jury. The Supreme Court concurred that the video was not sufficiently relevant to the shooting and cited concerns about its potential influence on the jury's views, according to information from WSB Radio.
"And because the State has not met its burden of showing that the error was harmless, we reverse Baker’s conviction," Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren wrote in the opinion. The video was deemed to have "little, if any, probative value" and its portrayal of Baker as a violent gunman could be considered as impermissible propensity evidence, thus it should not have contributed to the conversation around his guilt or innocence.
Despite the overturned conviction, not all justices were in agreement. Dissenting opinions argued that the video was "not as prejudicial as the majority opinion holds." Justice Shawn Ellen LaGrua contended that the video had occupied only a small fragment of a four-day trial packed with other evidence. He noted, "The video was played for a total of 99 seconds, and discussion of the video took up only a few minutes of the four-day trial—a trial, as I have explained, in which substantial evidence of Baker’s guilt was presented to the jury."
Baker had been serving his life sentence at the Coffee Correctional Facility in south Georgia, with no immediate details on his release following the ruling. As the debate continues over the usage of rap lyrics and videos in criminal trials, this case in Georgia marks yet another twist in the ongoing discussion about the intersection of art, expression, and legal boundaries.
