(15 Feb 2025)
POOL
Los Angeles – 14 February 2025
1. A$AP Rocky in court
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Joe Tacopina, attorney for A$AP Rocky:
"(Unintelligible) There’s absolutely no evidence of a shooting. And that heavy burden should not be yours to have to live with on this evidence. It should not be. It’s not right. It’s not fair to do what the evidence won’t, condemn an innocent man. And by the way, remember this. Remember, this is circumstantial evidence. If the evidence points to both guilt and innocence. You must, there is no option here, you must side with innocence. If there is two interpretations of the evidence, guilt or innocence, you must start with this. That’s the law. It’s in your little books. Jury instructions. You must it’s not an option. I mean, what kind of system, seriously, folks, we have this kind of wouldn’t seem to be somehow in for dear life. Would you go back at this point? I’ve talked about there not being any forensic evidence in this case. No fingerprints, DNA. There’s none. No independent evidence (unintelligible) Well, ladies and gentlemen, the judge told you it only takes one lie under oath to throw this case out of court by you if you choose your decision. But just one lie. It’s justification for you say I disregard all of this testimony."
3. SOUNDBITE (English) John Lewin, Deputy District Attorney:
"Once you decide that this was not a prop gun and ladies and gentlemen, it’s not a prop gun, I’m going to go through all the reasons. And once you decide that, this case is done, it’s over. Because that’s the defense in the case, not as Mr. Tacopina tried to argue, well, it’s self defense. You noticed Mr. Tacopina didn’t actually reach the next step. He talked about self defense but you never explained who you know for it to be self defense, you have to find that it was a real gun. If you have a question about that, you ask the court you have to find to get to self-defense that it was a real gun. That’s what you have to fine. That’s the issue in this case. Was it a prop gun or was it not? If you find it’s a prop gun, all I can say is, you know what, you really need to examine why you are getting there. And I’m going to bring up something that’s really important. The defendant is a celebrity. His wife’s an even bigger celebrity. Many of you know who they are. They brought in two of their adorable children yesterday for closing argument. Now, they haven’t been here at any other time. And you have to ask yourselves, those kids have a right to be here, why children that age would be here in a situation like this? Don’t know. But you have to ask yourself, am I going to let my feelings of not wanting to convict the defendant? Mr. Tacopina made it very clear. If you notice in closing today, he literally brought up Rihanna, he brought up the defendant’s family and he basically was saying, hey, listen, ‘if if you convict him, it’s going to be very difficult on the family.’"
4. Tight of A$AP Rocky
5. SOUNDBITE (English) John Lewin, Deputy District Attorney:
"And I want to make sure that no matter how successful he is, how famous his wife is and how cute his kids are, how much they giggle here during closing arguments that you guys are not going to say, you know what? We’re going to give him a little extra. He needs to be treated like you would treat any other person. Because in the end, that’s all that he is entitled to. He doesn’t get to be the big celebrity in a jury trial. He’s a defendant like anyone else."
6. Tight of A$AP Rocky
STORYLINE:
Convictions on both counts could mean up to 24 years in prison.
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