Title: Transforming Justice - A Crime to Rhyme: Race, Rap, and the Criminal Legal System
Date: Friday, May 16, 2025. This podcast was recorded from a panel that was held virtually as part of the 14th Annual Critical Perspectives Conference “Transforming Justice,” hosted by University of Victoria.
Description: In May 2025, Professor Lisa M. Kelly, Ms. Afsheen Chowdhury (Law’24) and Mr. Lamar Skeete joined in a virtual conversation for the 14th Annual Critical Perspectives Conference, “Transforming Justice,” hosted by University of Victoria. Their panel – A Crime to Rhyme: Race, Rap, and the Criminal Legal System – discussed the controversial practice of using rap lyrics to secure criminal convictions. Each year, Prof. Kelly teaches Mr. Skeete’s case – R. v. Skeete (Ontario Court of Appeal, 2017) – in her Evidence course where students consider what happens when art is put on trial. In this conversation across prison walls, Kelly, Chowdhury, and Skeete discuss racial bias, systemic injustice, and the transformative power of education and community between prison and the academy.
Speakers:
- Lisa Kelly, Associate Professor, Queen's Law
- Afsheen Chowdhury, Law'24
- Lamar Skeete
Video:
Podcast:
Transcript:
00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:08,000
[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]
Okay. Great. Um. We have a panel next.
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:11,450
And, uh, we have Lisa Kelly.
00:00:12,290 --> 00:00:15,500
Uh, she and Chowdhary and, uh, another presenter.
00:00:16,340 --> 00:00:26,600
Um, and I'll let you introduce, uh, the panel and a crime to rhyme, race, rap and the criminal legal system.
00:00:28,970 --> 00:00:32,600
Wonderful. So thank you so much to all of you for attending.
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:37,250
And thank you very much, uh, for hosting us in this hybrid form.
00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:43,010
Uh, I'm going to begin just by introducing myself and the panel, um, with a land acknowledgement,
00:00:43,010 --> 00:00:47,870
and then we will, uh, hopefully host a discussion amongst ourselves,
00:00:47,870 --> 00:00:57,450
but also with you in the room, uh, about your, uh, thoughts, experience and, um, comments on some of the information that we're putting forward.
00:00:57,470 --> 00:01:04,700
So my name is Lisa Kelly. I teach at Queen's University Faculty of Law in Kingston, Ontario,
00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:14,150
and the land that Queen's University is situated on is the traditional territories of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples,
00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:18,409
who were the first and original inhabitants of this land.
00:01:18,410 --> 00:01:25,729
And they are still here today. Uh, for those of us who work and teach in law like myself, uh,
00:01:25,730 --> 00:01:35,990
and I've seen I take this moment to reflect on how the colonial and Canadian laws have wrongfully displaced indigenous peoples from their lands.
00:01:36,410 --> 00:01:38,330
Uh, since European contact.
00:01:38,330 --> 00:01:48,470
And I commit to learning and applying indigenous laws and protocols that identify our collective and shared responsibilities, uh, to this land.
00:01:49,370 --> 00:01:59,209
I also want to note that our co panellist, Mister Lamar Skeete, is currently incarcerated at the Federal Penitentiary of Collins Bay,
00:01:59,210 --> 00:02:04,010
which is located less than ten kilometres from Queen's University.
00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:14,870
And I know that prisons and universities form part of the physical and institutional infrastructure and architecture of settler colonialism,
00:02:14,870 --> 00:02:20,199
uh, on these lands. Um, I am going to in a few minutes.
00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:29,500
Uh, read a poem, uh, that Mr. Skeet, uh, sent to me after he kindly, uh, appeared, uh, virtually in my class in the fall.
00:02:29,860 --> 00:02:37,720
But before I do that, I just want to give a bit of an introduction to the substance of our panel and,
00:02:37,750 --> 00:02:41,590
uh, some insights into the role that that I believe in,
00:02:41,590 --> 00:02:52,180
that I think the three of us share about the importance of rules of evidence when we think about systemic inequalities in the criminal legal system.
00:02:52,660 --> 00:03:00,820
Uh, so, as I noted, I teach at Queen's, I teach evidence law, I teach criminal law, and I teach criminal procedure.
00:03:01,660 --> 00:03:07,450
Um, and one of the great so-called crises in our criminal legal system.
00:03:07,720 --> 00:03:18,370
Although, as Professor Fred Ah Bell has shown, I think calling some of these phenomenon crises, um, is definitionally impoverished.
00:03:18,370 --> 00:03:24,040
They tend more to be features rather than, um, crisis moments.
00:03:24,040 --> 00:03:34,930
But one of these so-called crises is, of course, the overrepresentation and overincarceration of indigenous, racialized and black people,
00:03:35,230 --> 00:03:44,860
uh, throughout the criminal legal system, uh, both on this side of accused person, people accused of crimes and also, um, as victims.
00:03:46,230 --> 00:03:49,510
And I want to suggest in our conversation today.
00:03:49,530 --> 00:03:55,469
And in doing so, I build certainly, and I'm in conversation with other scholars and advocates, um,
00:03:55,470 --> 00:04:03,390
that this overrepresentation is not merely the product of uneven or biased enforcement,
00:04:03,390 --> 00:04:09,060
for instance, uh, unequal policing, although that is obviously a piece of it.
00:04:09,570 --> 00:04:16,559
Um, nor is it only the outcome of often state created conditions of deprivation
00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:22,080
and dispossession that lead to higher rates of offending and victimisation,
00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:30,270
so-called crime genic conditions. Although again, that's also obviously a piece of why we see overrepresentation.
00:04:30,900 --> 00:04:34,200
But I want to suggest to you that it is also, crucially,
00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:44,729
a function and an outcome of the way that our legal rules and processes themselves reproduce and create racial hierarchies,
00:04:44,730 --> 00:04:48,450
uh, in the criminal process and in society more generally.
00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:57,480
Um, and here I want to highlight a forthcoming paper by Rakesh Walters, uh, an amazing scholar doing a PhD,
00:04:57,780 --> 00:05:05,400
currently at Berkeley, um, who is looking at the ways in which substantive criminal law in Canada.
00:05:05,430 --> 00:05:15,209
Um, specifically, uh, this paper, uh, looking at criminal associations and how the criminal provisions themselves,
00:05:15,210 --> 00:05:23,070
as they are policed against so-called gang members, um, are regularly used to police and punish black kinship,
00:05:23,490 --> 00:05:32,250
uh, in ways that are not merely, um, uh, uh, importing racism from society into the criminal system,
00:05:32,550 --> 00:05:41,010
but actually constitute and produce racial hierarchies within the criminal system, um, and within society.
00:05:41,940 --> 00:05:47,670
Um, and I want to suggest that something similar happens through our rules of evidence.
00:05:48,300 --> 00:05:52,060
Um, so rules of evidence for those of us who are not, um, uh,
00:05:52,110 --> 00:06:02,330
in the legal system are really the rules that govern how we come to know and adjudicate what happened in a criminal trial.
00:06:02,340 --> 00:06:08,310
So a criminal trial asks what happened on such and such a day.
00:06:08,970 --> 00:06:18,200
And when the Crown pursues a prosecution against someone, and when an accused person defends themselves against those charges,
00:06:18,210 --> 00:06:25,980
it's the rules of evidence that govern what information and what types of data, uh,
00:06:25,980 --> 00:06:31,920
can be made available to the judge or the jury and how they can use that information.
00:06:32,430 --> 00:06:43,020
So it's really the rules of evidence really set the, the, the game, the rules of the game in terms of what people come to know about what happened.
00:06:43,830 --> 00:06:49,559
Um, and that means that they are crucial to how criminal trials proceed.
00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:59,160
And I want to suggest that the long and growing practice of admitting and using rap lyrics against criminal defendants,
00:06:59,880 --> 00:07:09,300
um, plays a constitutive role in reproducing anti-black stereotypes within the criminal system about,
00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:17,670
uh, in particular about young black men and the, uh, this stereotype that they are inherently dangerous,
00:07:17,730 --> 00:07:23,250
dangerous, and inherently more likely, uh, to commit, uh, violent crimes.
00:07:23,670 --> 00:07:32,639
Um, let me just say a few words before I turn to our my esteemed, um, co-panelists, uh, about this phenomenon, um,
00:07:32,640 --> 00:07:41,220
and about my evidence class and how it is, um, that Mr. Skeet, uh, it came to play such an important role in it, uh, in the fall.
00:07:41,610 --> 00:07:44,639
So, um, each year when I teach evidence law,
00:07:44,640 --> 00:07:53,640
I dedicate a class to this topic of the admissibility and use of rap lyrics, uh, as evidence in criminal trials.
00:07:53,640 --> 00:08:00,810
And it is a growing practice in the United States and in the territory now known as Canada.
00:08:01,350 --> 00:08:08,100
Uh, in the U.S., a one study has identified almost 700 cases since the late 1980s,
00:08:08,370 --> 00:08:14,790
where rap lyrics have been used as evidence, um, overwhelmingly against criminal defendants.
00:08:15,030 --> 00:08:18,980
And I would note those are just the cases that proceed to trial.
00:08:18,990 --> 00:08:22,410
The vast majority of criminal matters never go to trial.
00:08:22,740 --> 00:08:33,030
Um, and so you have, uh, that that that number of 700 at state trials is really the tip of an iceberg in terms of how rap lyrics might be used.
00:08:33,030 --> 00:08:39,720
For instance, uh, to put pressure on someone to plead guilty if they say they're going to use it at trial.
00:08:39,900 --> 00:08:48,400
Also, in the policing, uh, stages in Canada, uh, Professor David Tanner at Windsor has done, uh, excellent leading work in this area.
00:08:48,420 --> 00:08:54,209
He has found numerous reported cases over in recent decades where police and
00:08:54,210 --> 00:09:00,570
prosecutors have sought to use rap lyrics in criminal investigations and prosecutions.
00:09:00,810 --> 00:09:10,140
And as you can imagine, with the rise of social media, uh, this, this reliance and use of rap lyrics has only, uh, proliferated.
00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:18,300
Um, I want to stress here that reliance on this type of artistic expression is utterly unique.
00:09:18,960 --> 00:09:29,430
There is no other art form, and certainly no other musical genre, that is relied upon in the criminal system in the way that rap rights are.
00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:35,340
Um, what are they used for? Sometimes they're used as evidence of a confession.
00:09:35,370 --> 00:09:41,640
Sometimes they're used to suggest the accused had knowledge of a particular fact pertaining to a crime.
00:09:41,820 --> 00:09:46,650
Sometimes they're used for identity. Sometimes they're used to suggest gang affiliations.
00:09:46,660 --> 00:09:53,080
Sometimes they're used, as in Mr. Skeets. A case to make an argument about motive.
00:09:53,770 --> 00:09:59,889
Um, the class that I teach provides an opportunity for students to think about this.
00:09:59,890 --> 00:10:06,040
The supposed probative value of this evidence and its prejudicial effects.
00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:10,390
When we speak in evidence law about the probative value and the prejudicial effect.
00:10:10,630 --> 00:10:22,120
What we mean is that every time a piece of evidence is admitted at a trial, a trial judge has the discretion and should consider the probative value.
00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:31,960
That is, how valuable is this evidence to show what it is being introduced for, whether that's a confession or a knowledge or a motive.
00:10:32,530 --> 00:10:35,530
And on the other hand, what's the prejudicial effect?
00:10:35,530 --> 00:10:43,330
How will the admissibility of this evidence potentially distort the fact finding work of the judge or jury?
00:10:43,810 --> 00:10:54,850
And when you're thinking about something like rap lyrics, of course, to the extent that it aggravates and plays upon and reproduces anti-Black racism,
00:10:55,180 --> 00:11:01,560
that is a pernicious and serious prejudicial effect that may well overcome,
00:11:01,600 --> 00:11:12,819
overwhelm, any probative value this evidence potentially has, um, students, uh, and, and uh, I've seen is going to speak to Miss Chowdhry in a moment.
00:11:12,820 --> 00:11:20,440
She was an enrolled student in the class. They really, really, really appreciate this class within the evidence course.
00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:26,349
And I think the reason they do is that it helps to bring home for them that technical rules.
00:11:26,350 --> 00:11:34,839
And it's a very technical course, uh, about rules of evidence really are, are are profoundly political.
00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:38,620
They have profoundly important social consequences and social meaning.
00:11:39,010 --> 00:11:42,520
And, um, you know, many of my students are fans of rap.
00:11:42,520 --> 00:11:48,850
They listen to rap. It drives home for them. Uh, some serious questions about this type of evidence.
00:11:49,150 --> 00:11:54,910
Um, the last thing I will say before I turn over, uh, to Mr. Skeet and Miss Chowdhry, um,
00:11:54,910 --> 00:11:59,799
is that each year I teach the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in skeet,
00:11:59,800 --> 00:12:05,230
which is the appellate case, uh, that Mr. Skeet fought to the Ontario Court of Appeal.
00:12:05,650 --> 00:12:14,740
Um, and that concerned the admission of rap lyrics in, uh, the first degree murder trial that he,
00:12:14,740 --> 00:12:20,590
uh, faced in that he was ultimately convicted in, uh, at the Ontario Court of Appeal,
00:12:20,590 --> 00:12:25,419
the the Ontario Court of Appeal found that the trial judge had committed a
00:12:25,420 --> 00:12:32,409
legal error when it um in how it treated the rap lyric evidence in this case,
00:12:32,410 --> 00:12:39,729
they found specifically that the trial judge should have paid more attention to a crucial question in these cases,
00:12:39,730 --> 00:12:50,770
which is do rap lyrics even reflect the autobiographical views or beliefs or perceptions of the person creating the rap lyric,
00:12:51,100 --> 00:12:53,620
or are they just artistic expression?
00:12:53,620 --> 00:13:03,970
So when someone writes a novel, we have we distinguish between the author of the novel and maybe a character or a narrator in the novel.
00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:09,430
The Ontario Court of Appeal found the trial judge didn't turn any attention to this question.
00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:19,670
Um. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal, um, in Mr. Skeets case found that the even if the the trial judge had turned, uh,
00:13:19,750 --> 00:13:30,370
his eye to this question that the rap lyrics still could have been commit um, uh, properly admitted uh, and so they upheld, uh, his conviction.
00:13:30,550 --> 00:13:37,120
Uh, he subsequently, uh, appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada and that, uh, appeal was rejected.
00:13:37,450 --> 00:13:40,719
So what I'm going to do now is turn over.
00:13:40,720 --> 00:13:51,580
Uh, Mr. Skeet and Miss Chowdhry, who both have, um, some really obvious lived experience and also insights, uh, about the use of rap lyrics.
00:13:51,580 --> 00:13:58,000
And then maybe toward the end of our conversation, we'll also talk a little bit more about our educational experiences.
00:13:58,270 --> 00:14:01,209
Um, or they might wish to do so, uh, within it.
00:14:01,210 --> 00:14:10,510
So with that, um, as, as our introduction, I think I will turn, um, why don't I turn over to you, Mr. Skate, first, if that makes sense.
00:14:10,660 --> 00:14:17,750
We've we've done some planning on our order. I might be I might be messing us up, but, um, I'll turn to you, Mr. Ski, for your.
00:14:17,750 --> 00:14:22,320
And you. Thank you very much. Accessories. Um, my name, Mr. Ski.
00:14:22,330 --> 00:14:25,660
Name for everyone who showed up at the conference for justice.
00:14:27,070 --> 00:14:31,530
My name is Lamar. That's. My mother gave me nicknames.
00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:35,040
Um, I don't represents variable ambition.
00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:39,570
I'm 35 years old. 30, 35, 34.
00:14:39,690 --> 00:14:42,780
Um, but I've been incarcerated for 30 years.
00:14:44,130 --> 00:14:50,160
Today, in this prison, the moment Collins Bay maximum security, I identify as indigenous.
00:14:51,300 --> 00:14:54,900
And I was in the courtroom when I was 21 years old. So young.
00:14:54,900 --> 00:15:05,070
Black man. Um. I would like to say I intend the indigenous programming very Corgan's Big Macs.
00:15:05,070 --> 00:15:12,930
The Eleanor of the program is famous. Broderick Broderick is from a code of school in refugee from South Dakota.
00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:18,140
He gave me this 5.3 star that I'm wearing today.
00:15:18,150 --> 00:15:25,860
And the five points represent five principles love, truth, peace, freedom, and justice.
00:15:26,820 --> 00:15:29,980
My original try is became a lot more.
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:37,070
It's not analogy is mind matter and both are the same fire principle that we stand on.
00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:44,190
This is the conference for justice, and I pray to this conference right here in Claims to Freedom.
00:15:44,190 --> 00:15:48,360
For all of the wrongful conviction people across Turtle Island.
00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:51,630
Pray for all the missing and murdered indigenous women.
00:15:52,260 --> 00:15:58,870
I pray for all of those affected by the evidence, and I pray that we can get the conversation going.
00:15:59,220 --> 00:16:00,810
The law of evidence.
00:16:01,260 --> 00:16:12,690
I just want everybody to remember that every single individual will stand trial on a Canadian court is entitled to be heard from Verizon,
00:16:12,690 --> 00:16:19,860
not just for the trial. A fair trial matter what colour the skin is, no matter what they identify had,
00:16:19,860 --> 00:16:27,090
no matter what their child would not know if they are entitled by law to a fair trial.
00:16:27,810 --> 00:16:31,500
That's what I'm going to say for now. I'm going to ask you.
00:16:33,140 --> 00:16:41,630
Thanks, Mr. Skip. So maybe I can give a little bit of background on how the three of us have now become connected, which I think is really cool.
00:16:42,020 --> 00:16:48,290
So before coming to law school, I was at Queen's University as a student,
00:16:48,650 --> 00:16:53,479
and I got really invested into studying rap music because of the neighbourhood.
00:16:53,480 --> 00:17:05,120
I grew up in Toronto, which which had gang violence and it had levels of crime, and I was just surrounded by a world that was full of crime.
00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:11,240
But because I was so closely connected with my schoolmates and my community, I didn't see the world full of criminals.
00:17:11,540 --> 00:17:15,350
And I felt really invested in discovering this.
00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:24,650
And then I went on to teach at Lamars, uh, institution Collins Bay, for part of my six week placement when I was a teacher candidate.
00:17:25,040 --> 00:17:29,179
And through that I met even more inmates, and most of them were from Toronto.
00:17:29,180 --> 00:17:34,460
And I thought, oh my God, so many of these folks, they remind me of my classmates from high school.
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:41,660
It just felt it just felt like I was I was with my mates, but in such a different setting.
00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:46,730
And it drew me towards then doing my master's degree, where I studied rap music.
00:17:46,940 --> 00:17:52,490
And this kind of is getting into the connection between Professor Kelly Lamar and I,
00:17:52,790 --> 00:17:56,750
where I felt invest it invested in this art form that I grew up with.
00:17:57,050 --> 00:18:00,680
Everyone in my hood really appreciated listening to rap music,
00:18:00,680 --> 00:18:11,480
but there's a particular history that I think is so specific to rap music in that its DNA can be traced back to a place of liberation.
00:18:11,990 --> 00:18:18,700
And what I mean by that is. If we go all the way back in history, even prior to slavery,
00:18:18,940 --> 00:18:27,759
there was a moment in time where black folks were brought over to North America and they worked on the plantation grounds.
00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:36,790
And through that, through this, the ever beginning of a black folks in North America, there is this captivity of slavery.
00:18:37,030 --> 00:18:42,790
But at the same time, the people working on the grounds would sing songs.
00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:51,280
And now the slave owners who were white colonisers thought that this was just music and entertainment.
00:18:51,550 --> 00:18:58,209
So what they didn't understand was this is also a way for black folks to pronounce
00:18:58,210 --> 00:19:04,660
their life and enunciate their sense of existence in a space where they're confined.
00:19:05,080 --> 00:19:12,280
And so they were making an alternate alternative geography that despite their confinement on the plantation ground,
00:19:12,430 --> 00:19:16,000
they are still annunciating life with that was not allowed for them.
00:19:16,330 --> 00:19:23,170
And if we follow that DNA, of course, the music had evolved over time to blues and jazz.
00:19:23,170 --> 00:19:29,680
And then we get to the streets with hip hop and we have turntables going and beats happening,
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:33,730
and that kind of turn into the evolution of what we know today as rap and hip hop.
00:19:34,300 --> 00:19:37,750
And it continues to also be not just something for pleasure,
00:19:38,050 --> 00:19:47,800
but also a way to enunciate life and the way that I had tried to write about it in my thesis was that there's this
00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:56,680
enclosure or confinement that so often comes with being black in North America and and global in a lot of ways,
00:19:56,980 --> 00:20:05,139
but that's disrupted by these less restrictive songs and beats and tempo changes and the way that hip
00:20:05,140 --> 00:20:12,160
hop can do this double duty of naming this colonial space the problem and undo it with with groove.
00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:26,080
It's a really beautiful thing. So then to see it used in the context of the courtroom is also, on some level, just a complete disrespect to this,
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:33,340
this beautiful genealogy of this very particular genre of music that's unlike any other.
00:20:33,850 --> 00:20:40,180
And to my understanding, Lamar, you also make music still and you also write and you're also still creative.
00:20:40,750 --> 00:20:45,400
And I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe talk a little bit about that and what that's been like for you.
00:20:46,590 --> 00:20:54,250
Definitely. Um. I've been writing rap music, poetry, if you will.
00:20:54,390 --> 00:20:58,320
Since I was maybe 11 years old. It's a part of me.
00:20:58,810 --> 00:21:04,830
Uh, just like, uh, she was saying she grew up in the hood. Where that's from some of the neighbourhood.
00:21:05,460 --> 00:21:09,660
Some people rap, some people break dance, some people do graffiti.
00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:13,800
Some people, um, are MCs, right?
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:17,640
No, it goes rap. Graffiti. Breakdancing.
00:21:17,970 --> 00:21:23,250
And there's one more out of college. There's not in my mind right now, but that's called hip hop.
00:21:23,940 --> 00:21:29,490
I grew up rapping when my younger brother and I rap about my real life experience.
00:21:30,150 --> 00:21:41,570
So when I realised that's what I was doing as I got in my late teenage years, and I can tell you a story in 16 bars, right?
00:21:42,110 --> 00:21:45,210
I was proud of myself and it came with a lot of fame.
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:49,589
It came with, hey man, you're good. You're going to make it some more like your talent.
00:21:49,590 --> 00:21:59,600
Keep doing what you're doing. When I was accused of this crime that I'm incarcerated for now, when I was living in the Dodge jail.
00:22:00,260 --> 00:22:05,970
I wrote about my life experience in the dojo, and that's actually good for your mental health.
00:22:05,990 --> 00:22:10,760
Now that I know what mental health is, it's a way to express something off your chest.
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:19,970
I just happen to have a lot of supporters because they believed that I had make it up about me being incarcerated.
00:22:20,810 --> 00:22:26,600
Poetry helped me through my darkest moments where I felt like giving up on life is over.
00:22:26,610 --> 00:22:30,020
I'm never getting on until they keep denying my feelings.
00:22:30,470 --> 00:22:37,600
When I pick up my pen and I put it. And I say it back to my soul.
00:22:37,690 --> 00:22:42,330
For anybody to say to myself in my head, my heart.
00:22:43,370 --> 00:22:49,910
These rhymes are going to get me out one day. These right are going to get me out and it motivates me to keep going.
00:22:50,510 --> 00:22:55,700
When I when I see Bull Bryant, somebody on the move say the best in the world.
00:22:55,970 --> 00:22:58,820
Keep doing what you're doing. You bring life in this place.
00:22:59,270 --> 00:23:06,440
And that's all I can see for myself mentally, in this dark dungeon of the federal penitentiary.
00:23:08,030 --> 00:23:12,260
Every day something happens. Somebody gets, uh, somebody overdoses on drugs.
00:23:12,710 --> 00:23:19,570
You know, it's not. It's not like everybody not out with zillions and have strength, as you might see right now.
00:23:19,580 --> 00:23:20,900
And all this is a real thing.
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:30,980
And me, myself, if I can feel myself, my right here and I see somebody else in here that can heal them, even for a moment,
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:38,450
even if I could kill somebody on the street that's going through the precedent, they feel like, oh, it's over for me to pay my bills.
00:23:38,990 --> 00:23:41,990
But you know what? The matter is still grabbing the mark.
00:23:41,990 --> 00:23:50,390
So strong he still believes himself. And what I can inspire generations and realise that I have a special ability to do that.
00:23:51,660 --> 00:23:55,590
I'm proud of myself. And that's that's the importance of poetry, right?
00:23:55,650 --> 00:24:00,930
That's why artists are artists that when the artist puts their they're like the shoulder board,
00:24:00,930 --> 00:24:10,030
but it's because they want somebody else who's going through a hard time to say, hey, I'm going to a hard time concealed weapon.
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:14,310
The and rappers will have $1 million or a hard time and they can get to it.
00:24:14,940 --> 00:24:20,210
You know what I mean? It can continue to inspire. So that's why I write today.
00:24:20,220 --> 00:24:27,680
You know, that's my piece. Yeah. Thanks so much, Lamar.
00:24:27,890 --> 00:24:31,730
I thought maybe, Professor Kelly, this is actually the perfect time to share that poem,
00:24:31,730 --> 00:24:41,390
and then we can go into the classroom and how we all got connected, because that's also a really cool story of how the three of us became mates.
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:47,190
Absolutely. So I'm going to. This is, uh.
00:24:48,300 --> 00:24:51,780
Uh, as you can see, the title here is Poetic Justice.
00:24:52,110 --> 00:25:02,430
Um, this is a beautiful, uh, poem. And note, uh, that Mr. Skeets sent to me, uh, after he, uh, visited my class virtually in the fall.
00:25:02,700 --> 00:25:06,540
Uh, and I'm going to read it for all of you. Uh, with his permission.
00:25:07,500 --> 00:25:16,890
And it's entitled Poetic Justice. Professor Lisa Kelly, thank you for having me as well as taking the time to research this travesty.
00:25:17,250 --> 00:25:24,210
Now, Professor Lisa, you are part of the faculty to turn Lamarr mosquitoes dream into reality.
00:25:24,660 --> 00:25:31,440
Well, C40 just passed for all nationalities so the wrongfully convicted can be home with their families.
00:25:31,860 --> 00:25:35,250
You see, most of my days, I am away in a cage.
00:25:35,400 --> 00:25:38,670
So I appreciate your role in allowing me the stage.
00:25:39,030 --> 00:25:45,960
The vibration was great. The students engaged made me feel like more than just a name on the page.
00:25:46,770 --> 00:25:50,160
Convicted for rap, reality and poetry.
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,270
From federal penitentiary to Queens Law University.
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:58,229
We made history. Walking through the blizzard. Evidence.
00:25:58,230 --> 00:26:04,410
Law class. Home of the Wizards. This poem was written from the beast's belly.
00:26:04,620 --> 00:26:07,890
Just to say thank you to Professor Lisa Kelly.
00:26:13,230 --> 00:26:21,210
Um, so that'll give you a sense, uh, of, uh, Mr. Skeets, uh, gift and talent and as as he just eloquently shared,
00:26:21,270 --> 00:26:27,479
um, the role that that continues to play, uh, in his life and, and, uh, in the well being.
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:32,910
So. Yeah, um, I've seen I think you were just going to move us into, um, we have a,
00:26:32,940 --> 00:26:39,149
I think about 15 minutes because I see quite a number of people in the classroom who may want to a comment or ask a question.
00:26:39,150 --> 00:26:44,700
So, uh, I think you wanted to move. Yeah. Into the the educational side of this.
00:26:44,700 --> 00:26:52,500
Um, I think as a really important, hopefully growing opportunity for us to think about how do we engage educationally,
00:26:52,830 --> 00:26:56,040
uh, across and, uh, present in classroom walls.
00:26:56,040 --> 00:27:04,229
So I'll turn it to you now, Jim. Sure. So, as you all know, I was a student in Professor Kelly's class when I was in law school.
00:27:04,230 --> 00:27:08,850
I just graduated last year, and evidence class was honestly my favourite.
00:27:09,210 --> 00:27:12,270
Professor Kelly's actually the goat. Her class is the best.
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:13,859
The goat is the greatest of all time.
00:27:13,860 --> 00:27:19,589
I don't know if everybody knows that, but we were supposed to be accessible for this conference and I feel like all y'all are with them.
00:27:19,590 --> 00:27:25,200
But I still got to explain it because they're recording this and yeah, she's actually the goat.
00:27:25,470 --> 00:27:29,400
And then I remember thinking, oh my God, we're going to learn about the rap lyrics.
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:35,969
And I was so excited for the class because I just did my masters and I thought, oh my God, there's so much I got to see.
00:27:35,970 --> 00:27:42,030
And I just got in there. I remember I raised my hand, I just, I just think everything I wanted, I was like, how could this be?
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,270
How is this possible? This isn't fair. That is what I would say.
00:27:45,270 --> 00:27:50,549
What like fairness and justice are like, this is just so. This is the antithesis of what justice is to me.
00:27:50,550 --> 00:27:56,040
I'm thinking, how can I use this genre, this art form, and how so in passion that I thought,
00:27:56,040 --> 00:28:00,029
okay, I'm going to make a live radio show episode about this with Professor Kelly.
00:28:00,030 --> 00:28:04,470
And we talked about it and I was just so hyped up, it just stuck with me.
00:28:04,980 --> 00:28:10,170
And then fast forward a couple of years down the road, I bump into Professor Kelly.
00:28:10,170 --> 00:28:16,710
I've already graduated. I haven't seen her in a minute. And then I seen at this event and she's like, yo, actually, guess what?
00:28:16,770 --> 00:28:22,620
Okay, not verbatim, because that's obviously Professor Kelly has a different vernacular, but she's like, yo, guess what?
00:28:23,370 --> 00:28:30,420
The more she came to my class and I was like, no way, no way, there's no way.
00:28:30,990 --> 00:28:36,180
And she's like, no word. He actually came and I have a dance class.
00:28:36,570 --> 00:28:43,680
And I was just my mind was blown and I told her, you know, the next time you have him, I need to come.
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,010
I want to, I want to hear what he has to say. I want to be a part of this.
00:28:47,340 --> 00:28:53,880
And she said, you know what? I'll do you one better. How would the three of us do a conference presentation together?
00:28:53,910 --> 00:29:00,990
Which is this right now, to talk about what it's been like to not just be the student and the teacher, but to meet the person?
00:29:01,260 --> 00:29:05,280
And that's you, Lamar. So now I'm going to pass it to you.
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,299
And so we can talk about what this entire experience has been for, for all of us.
00:29:09,300 --> 00:29:12,030
For me, it's surreal. I can't even believe we're doing this together.
00:29:12,420 --> 00:29:17,249
And it's like you said, it's you're talking about astrology and how we've all come together.
00:29:17,250 --> 00:29:23,430
And I feel like you're right. There's some twist of fate that brought all three of us together.
00:29:23,700 --> 00:29:30,239
And this is absolutely incredible because, uh, it's it's not it's not learning confined in a classroom anymore.
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:35,370
It's across the walls. It doesn't matter where we are, what building or what's holding this structure together.
00:29:35,370 --> 00:29:38,670
There's clearly something that's even greater than that. This bring us together.
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:43,810
So why don't I hand it off to you? Definitely.
00:29:43,820 --> 00:29:46,910
Um. This is some astrological energy going on.
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:51,890
As I said. Um, I've been writing my poetry since I've been locked up.
00:29:52,070 --> 00:29:54,800
You know what? I didn't give up a fight for my freedom.
00:29:54,820 --> 00:30:03,440
So every time I waited until I released projects, I'm active in the community for the purpose of people hearing my story.
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:12,740
I greatly appreciate this recognition for having the courage to teach the case in an academic institution.
00:30:13,250 --> 00:30:19,070
It's a serious political case so that if you even touch upon the matter, you could go.
00:30:20,150 --> 00:30:29,180
And I appreciate that you put in academic institutions are even talking about me, because I wanted to think that anybody would want to talk about me.
00:30:29,210 --> 00:30:34,850
What's so special about Lamar? Even though I'm an individual, that's just me.
00:30:34,850 --> 00:30:41,180
Me being him, you know? So we're making it all the way up from Toronto, Western Toronto.
00:30:42,020 --> 00:30:50,600
I've been incarcerated for 15 years. In fact, I'm speaking in front of the University of Utah, you know, all the way in British Columbia.
00:30:51,470 --> 00:30:59,420
I told one of my friends on the range, he looked at me, said, ma'am, me too far, and shook my hands.
00:30:59,420 --> 00:31:01,390
So I'm probably that serious.
00:31:01,670 --> 00:31:10,610
I make a joke for him all the time and one of my best friends, but we're from Toronto, was speaking at a conference for justice in B.C.
00:31:11,270 --> 00:31:16,190
Uh, I got to speak in front of the evidence law class at Queen's.
00:31:16,250 --> 00:31:20,690
Well, I have to versity, which is the most prominent law school in the country.
00:31:21,110 --> 00:31:27,439
So that happens like there must be some type of energy that's guiding me into the right direction.
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,709
You understand? Uh, yes, definitely.
00:31:30,710 --> 00:31:36,290
Like, there's definitely some type of. Something with an equation of the soul.
00:31:36,500 --> 00:31:40,010
It's great. It's great energy. I'll pass it off to some political.
00:31:42,810 --> 00:31:51,960
Wonderful. So I think I see where we're about a 920 BC time, so why don't I see if, um.
00:31:52,180 --> 00:31:56,309
Uh, I don't know if, uh, people want to hear any more or.
00:31:56,310 --> 00:32:02,790
Mr. Skeet, if you want to share, um, more about the specifics, um, of your case.
00:32:02,790 --> 00:32:09,000
So you maybe we'll we'll touch on that just a little bit about how rap was actually used in your case.
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:17,850
And then any thoughts that, that, that the three of us or people in the room have, uh, about this use of evidence and these larger.
00:32:17,850 --> 00:32:23,730
And then I would love to hear from people, um, who may have thoughts or comments who are, who are in the room.
00:32:24,570 --> 00:32:33,090
Um, so I'll just say a few words. Um, I think I already set out, uh, a little bit of the background about how rap,
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:38,520
uh, lyric evidence has been used and, and this practice is really just growing.
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:45,750
Um, and in Mr. Skeets, um, particular case, as I think, um, he alluded to and I just want to there's,
00:32:45,810 --> 00:32:49,590
there are two features here that that really stood out to me.
00:32:49,620 --> 00:33:00,420
Um, when one thinks about, uh, Mr. Skeets case, but cases more generally, the first is that obviously, um, cases like this have many tragic features.
00:33:00,450 --> 00:33:12,360
Um, uh, this case obviously involves, uh, a loss of life and, um, you know, a victim who's, uh, family mourns their loss.
00:33:12,870 --> 00:33:17,760
Um, but as Mr. Skeet alluded to, when we think about a criminal legal system,
00:33:18,420 --> 00:33:27,900
we're thinking about each and every person having a fair trial and having including the evidence that is used.
00:33:28,260 --> 00:33:34,560
Um, is used in ways that, as I've said in these technical terms, is more probative than prejudicial.
00:33:34,590 --> 00:33:44,190
You've probably all heard the phrase we would we would rather, um, 100 guilty men go free than one non guilty person be convicted.
00:33:44,190 --> 00:33:49,020
And when I talk about guilt, I don't just mean factually innocent.
00:33:49,500 --> 00:33:56,910
Uh, whether somebody ultimately did it or not, you're talking about whether you want to have a system in how it adjudicates,
00:33:56,970 --> 00:34:01,500
um, that is alive two or is reproducing biases.
00:34:01,500 --> 00:34:07,110
And those are, you know, these are difficult tensions sometimes to hold, um,
00:34:07,110 --> 00:34:13,440
in one place, uh, when one is thinking about overall questions, uh, of harm and justice.
00:34:13,890 --> 00:34:18,390
Um, but but I think I tried in my discussions with Mr.
00:34:18,390 --> 00:34:23,730
Skating in the class to be alive to those. So I'll just, um, give a couple of pieces of background and then.
00:34:23,730 --> 00:34:35,340
Mr. Skeet, if you want to say anything more before we open it up. Um, and one piece is that, um, Mr. Skeet, prior to, uh, this conviction, was, uh,
00:34:35,340 --> 00:34:43,680
accused of an attempted murder, um, of the, uh, of the, uh, deceased, uh, who is ultimately charged with murder.
00:34:44,190 --> 00:34:52,440
And one piece that I want to pull out of that is that when Mr. Skeet and his brother were charged with an initial attempt.
00:34:52,450 --> 00:34:55,769
Murder? Uh, they were both youths. Um.
00:34:55,770 --> 00:35:05,760
And, Mr. Skeet, you can correct me on the timeline, but I think you spent almost 14 months, uh, in row in pre-trial youth detention.
00:35:06,270 --> 00:35:12,060
And one of the things that stood out to me as I asked Mr. Skeet when he came to my class in the fall, what is it?
00:35:12,090 --> 00:35:16,260
What was a day like for you in youth pre-trial detention?
00:35:16,260 --> 00:35:21,600
And when we think about it, this is a stage when people's brains, souls,
00:35:21,780 --> 00:35:33,060
bodies are maturing and we placed him as we place, you know, other youth into a detention facility for 14 months.
00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:42,090
And he said to me in class, what we did each day is we fought, we played basketball, and we wrapped.
00:35:44,820 --> 00:35:54,210
And that is at a time in one's life, particularly around the fighting, when one is supposed to be educationally shaped, socially shaped.
00:35:54,810 --> 00:35:57,990
And he was held for 14 months pre-trial detention.
00:35:57,990 --> 00:36:07,050
And then what happened at the end of that? The Crown withdrew the charges on the very eve of when he was supposed to go to trial.
00:36:07,890 --> 00:36:17,850
And what I question is when Crown prosecutors sit on these cases and leave people languishing in pre-trial detention
00:36:17,850 --> 00:36:25,290
for so long and then withdrew the charges because they admitted they had no reasonable likelihood of conviction.
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:33,399
They have altered the trajectory of that person's life in serious and permanent ways,
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:39,850
and they have potentially altered the trajectory of other people's lives whom that person comes into contact with.
00:36:41,450 --> 00:36:48,860
And that is, to me, a haunting feature of this case that doesn't is is separate and apart from the rap lyrics piece.
00:36:49,550 --> 00:36:54,590
Um, but that we know happens every day across this country.
00:36:54,590 --> 00:37:00,530
The vast majority of people who are in detention right now in Canada are pre-trial detention.
00:37:01,410 --> 00:37:07,400
They're people who are facing charges and faces and sentences, and they are subject to abhorrent conditions.
00:37:08,390 --> 00:37:13,790
Um, so that's just a piece that I want to pull out. The rap, the the rap lyric.
00:37:14,030 --> 00:37:22,759
Um, if you want to say anything about it, Mr. skeet, as you said, um, was ultimately made by you while you were facing murder charges.
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:29,260
The Crown came to know about it, and they kind of just took it out one day at court and said, this is what we're going to.
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,989
So if you want to speak to any other of those elements, Mr. Skeet, I'm going to leave it to you.
00:37:32,990 --> 00:37:35,720
Definitely. And then let's open up to the room. Thank you.
00:37:36,770 --> 00:37:44,510
Uh, I'm going to touch on your murder matter that's going to transition into all the rap lyrics for a minute into the traversal.
00:37:45,170 --> 00:37:51,110
What we're basically telling you is, um, when I was 17 years old.
00:37:52,250 --> 00:38:01,520
November 10th thousand and eight. Well, I was already in custody for, uh, armed robbery that I ended up pleading guilty to.
00:38:01,520 --> 00:38:05,350
I took responsibility for while already in custody.
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:09,200
I was charged for attempted murder. Attempted murder.
00:38:09,620 --> 00:38:14,330
The shooting happened on September 17th, in the western of Toronto.
00:38:15,650 --> 00:38:21,530
But in short, the guide. Me and my younger brother charged for this charge.
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:27,330
We know that we are going to beat the case. Our lawyers were very confident.
00:38:28,580 --> 00:38:35,810
As for Bethany, Kelly said 14 months later. Day of my trial December 14th, 2009.
00:38:37,170 --> 00:38:41,910
They withdrew the charge. Now, a withdrawal is not an acquittal.
00:38:42,930 --> 00:38:47,010
Withdrawal means. Sorry. You shouldn't be charged for this.
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,300
Oh, acquittal. You go to trial.
00:38:51,990 --> 00:38:55,340
Let's see if the guy's guilty or not. I didn't stand trial and judge.
00:38:56,250 --> 00:39:00,510
Was the conclusion. High court should have never got sent to High Court for trial.
00:39:00,660 --> 00:39:03,690
Should have taken the whole course and charges have been dismissed.
00:39:04,660 --> 00:39:10,260
Come on. Unfortunately. Same victim of murder charge.
00:39:11,220 --> 00:39:14,520
Got fatally shot in the West End of Toronto.
00:39:14,550 --> 00:39:20,540
Condolences to his family. And. I was charged for murder.
00:39:22,210 --> 00:39:26,200
First degree murder of the same victim of the attempted murder.
00:39:28,130 --> 00:39:35,540
The Crown attorney's theory is that he was upset at the victim because the victim
00:39:35,540 --> 00:39:42,310
cooperated with the police and gave information concerning an attacker shooting.
00:39:43,830 --> 00:39:49,110
When I was standing trial, my lawyer said, your Honour, you can't put that in front of the jury.
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:54,420
Mr. skeet didn't do the attempted murder. You got a with God I'm talking about here.
00:39:54,780 --> 00:40:04,649
Listen, we can tell the jury, Mr. Ski and the victim, uh, history, uh, gave information to the police, if that's what.
00:40:04,650 --> 00:40:11,400
You're serious. But I don't want to hear about anything to do with an attempted murder and a shooting,
00:40:11,850 --> 00:40:21,060
because they're going to think my client either tried to shoot him before, or he he did it and got away with it.
00:40:21,070 --> 00:40:25,080
You're just putting too much in the minds of the jury. Just leave that out.
00:40:25,500 --> 00:40:28,590
We're not trying to go into the victim's past here.
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:39,300
It's extremely difficult. Mr. ski in the judge allows the jury to hear everything about your temper, judge.
00:40:39,870 --> 00:40:45,240
And that sentence. But it's not about if Mr. Ski did it or not.
00:40:45,810 --> 00:40:50,580
It just matters that the victim cooperated with the police.
00:40:50,940 --> 00:40:55,140
Well, yes. The Crown still reveals that Mr. Ski was upset a long time.
00:40:56,420 --> 00:40:59,470
All right, so this is the Crown's motive.
00:41:00,250 --> 00:41:05,860
So they have their motive evidence. They have to rely on the intent.
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:13,660
Murder evidence, which is extremely prejudicial towards. One day in Port Martin on that important night.
00:41:13,660 --> 00:41:18,130
I told you guys I love to rap. So it also went downhill.
00:41:18,790 --> 00:41:23,050
I wrote a rap called life from the dog, fully based on a dog tale.
00:41:23,470 --> 00:41:36,180
Living conditions of the environment, the violence, all the raw realities that I'm now giving to society because I could transition.
00:41:36,230 --> 00:41:43,450
I know how to talk to both worlds. So as I'm in the jail, I said, I got to make people in society, you know how it is in the DoD jail.
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,620
Then I wrote three parts to the life in the DoD. Some of you.
00:41:48,910 --> 00:41:51,730
Same concept had nothing to do with the street.
00:41:52,950 --> 00:42:01,770
So when I caught one day at the trial going on, the Crown attorney typed in the case on the Google search bar.
00:42:02,250 --> 00:42:09,700
And because my case is going on in the Navy so much, it's actually from the algorithm that rat popped up on Google.
00:42:11,150 --> 00:42:16,040
I can hear the Crown attorney. My name was Karen Simoni. She was listening to my rap in the corner.
00:42:17,210 --> 00:42:21,340
The wires misleading my roof or what was going on.
00:42:22,090 --> 00:42:28,270
When the judge came into the courtroom, she said. Your honour, she has been dropping from the time jail, and we have evidence.
00:42:29,260 --> 00:42:35,080
This evidence was never a part of the pre-trial motions. It was never at my hearing.
00:42:36,070 --> 00:42:39,790
She just only heard that right in that moment.
00:42:40,510 --> 00:42:52,570
Now, I said on the rap part two of the rap and the last hour before I pulled out the rap, I said ranges filled with crackheads and shotguns.
00:42:53,170 --> 00:42:57,820
Real [INAUDIBLE] don't crack to them coppers. I'm going to translate it for you.
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:07,240
What I said was the units or the inmates are being held in the Dodge jail, are full of gang members and drug addicts,
00:43:08,410 --> 00:43:13,400
and the real solid inmates don't communicate with the correctional officers.
00:43:14,460 --> 00:43:17,640
What it means. I saw that word for my heart. Right?
00:43:18,130 --> 00:43:23,590
Professor basically said the Court of Appeals said that, uh.
00:43:25,180 --> 00:43:30,350
The judge did it well. The effects. They start to [INAUDIBLE].
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:39,320
That's not argument. Don't give me that. Those coppers, the police officers or the coppers being correctional officers.
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:44,210
Those. Your expert is your expert. Bring it on to stun.
00:43:45,110 --> 00:43:49,880
That is going to decide the fate of the young man within 21 years old.
00:43:50,270 --> 00:43:58,260
Does he have a diverse. Knowledge in jail slang because she's a sled expert.
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:05,460
But now this expert is a police officer. A Toronto police officer, he said an expert on slap.
00:44:06,180 --> 00:44:10,139
You see that? For the Crown posting, the word corpus matters.
00:44:10,140 --> 00:44:19,350
He is saying real men who aligned itself with truth do not cooperate with police officers.
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:24,870
When my lawyers told me that I wanted to be trusted.
00:44:25,870 --> 00:44:30,510
But it's called life. Not. Did you not hear it?
00:44:30,910 --> 00:44:34,780
Sure. Well, let's. Let's listen to it for.
00:44:36,190 --> 00:44:44,860
Let's go through it. So in trials, when you want to add evidence in to the trial, expect to be noticed like that.
00:44:45,160 --> 00:44:51,780
We have to a legal procedure that's called a bottom here which is going to the crown expert.
00:44:52,160 --> 00:45:03,420
The expert is going to be one of them. And the judge away all the prejudicial facts and the whole versus approach probing involving.
00:45:04,500 --> 00:45:09,379
Understand. The judge himself said, oh, it's getting admitted.
00:45:09,380 --> 00:45:15,590
I'd never, ever heard somebody ever used the word coppers in reference to a correctional officer.
00:45:15,620 --> 00:45:19,820
I always thought coppers would be police officer. Let's run the fourth year.
00:45:20,710 --> 00:45:28,400
We run the fourth year and prove our point. Our point is all that the city is talking about the dog jail.
00:45:28,610 --> 00:45:31,780
And it has nothing to do with the crime. And.
00:45:33,700 --> 00:45:44,500
But the experts are just going to start to say real [INAUDIBLE] don't crack to the coppers means grown men who are like myself on the streets.
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:50,590
Not quite the police. You see the evidence that keep him out of his mouth.
00:45:51,250 --> 00:45:57,520
That's all he has to say. Continue to say that your expert witness in the drug trade could say you were a bit rash.
00:45:57,910 --> 00:46:01,930
And that's all the country is concerned about that one lie.
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:09,830
Because she wanted to relate to the motive that she's presenting to the jury,
00:46:10,940 --> 00:46:18,860
the victim of this crime or this is murder was murder because she cooperated with the police.
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:23,420
See if Martha Roman will live on the streets.
00:46:23,510 --> 00:46:27,820
Don't worry. And that is why she was murdered.
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:34,079
Uh oh. That's not what I meant. Everybody knows.
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:39,000
That's what I know. Everybody knows that coppers means correctional officer.
00:46:39,300 --> 00:46:43,680
And everybody knows that the motto of life, freedom and wonderful.
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:50,610
He was just telling society how it was like, okay, my lawyer said.
00:46:52,580 --> 00:46:55,550
This is going to be extremely important.
00:46:55,730 --> 00:47:04,130
We already have the battle on the murder charges that you talked about in front of the jury here, and people are.
00:47:05,380 --> 00:47:08,660
21 year old. Young black.
00:47:08,660 --> 00:47:12,440
Got long haired, got braids in your head. When we feel you know.
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,890
Here from the hood when you talk. Yeah.
00:47:16,140 --> 00:47:20,450
Speak educated. But we know you know what you're from.
00:47:20,450 --> 00:47:29,780
Get out of that by briefing. So the jury say here all this words sound like a glorifying violence.
00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,830
Songs with a sweet tooth to look and say.
00:47:34,640 --> 00:47:39,590
This kid is 19 years old in the dog jail.
00:47:41,250 --> 00:47:44,850
He doesn't have a Bible in his hand at the back. I'm scared to death.
00:47:46,630 --> 00:47:47,470
Sounds like it.
00:47:48,470 --> 00:48:01,380
So that is one of the players who sounds like you could have committed murder for definitely no rappers for an America or gangster rap music, right?
00:48:02,050 --> 00:48:06,490
My lawyer gave you a stern top. I didn't understand at the time.
00:48:07,490 --> 00:48:10,940
My brain wasn't fully developed. I was only 21 years old.
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:20,750
A human brain fully develops. You turned 25 right now, 34, 20, 35 is at least ten years behind me.
00:48:21,380 --> 00:48:25,170
So. Back to the murder charge.
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,680
So we know that we have an uphill battle for a murder charge.
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:33,470
This is the admission of the raptors and what found this family on.
00:48:33,510 --> 00:48:41,140
Even though the Crown has enough evidence for their motive, more than a dozen people go that far towards.
00:48:42,750 --> 00:48:47,070
I get convicted on March 30th, 2012.
00:48:48,650 --> 00:48:56,150
In 2013. The. And this is how, you know, the universe has this type of relationship with my heart.
00:48:57,500 --> 00:49:04,430
In 2013, the Toronto police conduct a raid across Toronto was called Project Formation.
00:49:05,060 --> 00:49:10,280
I was already in the federal penitentiary. Wrongfully convicted of first degree murder.
00:49:11,690 --> 00:49:21,100
So this is a year after my trial. They charged somebody for the attempted murder of the victim.
00:49:22,340 --> 00:49:26,060
That they put in all that evidence to my trial in front of the jury.
00:49:26,690 --> 00:49:32,200
So all that attempted murder evidence. Somebody else got fired for the attempted murder.
00:49:32,710 --> 00:49:36,040
You're up, ma'am. For what? Oh.
00:49:37,620 --> 00:49:41,670
So Lamar really didn't want to get stuck where he put it that he should have.
00:49:43,460 --> 00:49:46,700
It's not a matter of the. Maybe he just got away with it.
00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:51,540
No to charging somebody else. Why does that happen?
00:49:51,810 --> 00:49:57,510
The guy said it wasn't the LA was being. I was in 2013.
00:49:57,530 --> 00:50:08,240
What you're on right now. 145 the judges at the appeal court admitted that the trial and error in the law.
00:50:09,260 --> 00:50:12,709
You know what that means. You know you are, child.
00:50:12,710 --> 00:50:21,590
Or is that the judge error? When they make that the judge error, you are entitled to a new trial.
00:50:22,940 --> 00:50:31,160
You see, because they know their friend made a mistake, but they didn't want to give me a new trial because the political dynamic is full of.
00:50:32,620 --> 00:50:36,190
You understand job errors and trial.
00:50:36,850 --> 00:50:41,170
Bill Holland gets referred back to the laws.
00:50:42,240 --> 00:50:46,510
Not. Supreme Court of Canada. That's love.
00:50:47,170 --> 00:50:50,370
I made the love. So this is what we're dealing with.
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:59,930
Kids that we're dealing with, right? There is a criminal code that's called 7696.1.
00:51:00,110 --> 00:51:05,990
It's a miniature view based on fresh evidence. That's the process that I'm going through right now.
00:51:06,470 --> 00:51:10,100
But why does it have to take all these years?
00:51:10,610 --> 00:51:15,020
Well, you stir it up. That's why you have to take off your guide.
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,440
What evidence? In my trial about a Florida that.
00:51:19,250 --> 00:51:23,730
All right. You got through. You got somebody else's chart for the evidence.
00:51:23,750 --> 00:51:25,700
Let's forget about the Raptors right now.
00:51:26,270 --> 00:51:35,600
The Raptors occasional witness to this specific matter that we're talking about right now was published in the Los Angeles Times.
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:45,520
What? I'm from Canada, but it doesn't make me more of a famous rapper, you know, in pop in the Los Angeles Times.
00:51:45,730 --> 00:51:49,840
I'm asking you that, but I'm saying, seriously, talk about it.
00:51:49,870 --> 00:51:52,990
I have a lot. I have a family. I have people that love you.
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:56,170
I have supporters that support me everyday.
00:51:56,410 --> 00:52:00,400
And city freedom is a must. Keep doing what you're doing.
00:52:01,310 --> 00:52:07,990
Uh, I just know that I'm here to inspire resilience in the face of adversity.
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:11,350
And that's my duty on the earth. That's why I came to the earth.
00:52:11,860 --> 00:52:19,540
Now that I'm in my 30s, it's the years of grief. And I'm discovering my powers and my gift that I can give to the earth.
00:52:19,930 --> 00:52:23,410
So yes, I agree with that.
00:52:23,860 --> 00:52:26,970
But there still needs to be some fairness.
00:52:27,610 --> 00:52:31,420
What's going on? Why all these unfair things happening to me?
00:52:31,450 --> 00:52:38,140
And it's not only me. I just fought for a platform to have a voice for myself and for the voiceless.
00:52:38,770 --> 00:52:45,760
There is a bunch of wrongfully convicted people, especially indigenous people, you understand?
00:52:46,330 --> 00:52:52,500
So that's how the rappers were admitted last week talking about the murder evidence.
00:52:52,570 --> 00:52:55,940
And now you guys can see this case is.
00:52:57,610 --> 00:53:04,690
This is a travesty, this case kind to go under the rug and fight every day for my freedom.
00:53:04,720 --> 00:53:09,549
Every single day I wake up in prison in my cell and I look out my window.
00:53:09,550 --> 00:53:12,970
I think about my mother. Think about everything. I've been through a life.
00:53:13,030 --> 00:53:18,420
Just. Just give me more courage to fight. You know that's my peace.
00:53:18,430 --> 00:53:25,420
Because. Thank you.
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:34,680
Thanks very much, Lamar. Are there? Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing.
00:53:35,550 --> 00:53:39,570
And, uh, Professor Kelly and, uh, sorry.
00:53:40,140 --> 00:53:45,570
And also, um, Daniella, we'd like to open up, uh, a space now for some questions.
00:53:47,130 --> 00:53:52,110
So if anybody would like to pose a question when we say our name.
00:53:53,710 --> 00:53:56,830
We'll come in. I just want to say thank you.
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:01,540
And here's an example of what made by so many folks myself.
00:54:01,870 --> 00:54:15,220
And we're here with you. So we've got. I just want to say something to.
00:54:15,730 --> 00:54:22,640
Um, it's very inspiring, me being a person that was in, um, prison as well.
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:27,980
Seeing you coming from the same background on the west side of Toronto and just
00:54:27,980 --> 00:54:32,600
being stigmatised and used that as a fuel to do the things that you need to do,
00:54:32,600 --> 00:54:35,470
not only for yourself, but for everyone there.
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:43,100
So thank you for doing that and not becoming a statistic that they want us to do, but using your mind for the betterment of everyone else.
00:54:43,100 --> 00:54:48,229
So they're really empowering and keep up the good work with respect.
00:54:48,230 --> 00:54:59,960
Power to the people. Appreciate. I just like to say thank you to for being here and sharing your story with us.
00:55:00,650 --> 00:55:06,410
It's really inspiring and really sad that. It is welcome.
00:55:06,410 --> 00:55:10,730
Thank you for everybody for attending. I appreciate you guys listening to my story.
00:55:11,340 --> 00:55:15,560
We appreciate the effort of everybody who came to attend this event.
00:55:15,830 --> 00:55:24,260
It really touches my heart because I've been fighting, you know, and other people on this quadrant, not only for for years, for years, for years.
00:55:24,860 --> 00:55:30,080
Um, and. This is not this is not happening by accident.
00:55:30,290 --> 00:55:36,120
So as much as it is surreal. Uh, event for me was sitting in the audience.
00:55:36,390 --> 00:55:41,160
The action, even professional difficulty, is as real for me.
00:55:42,060 --> 00:55:45,150
So the real. Because it's my my name.
00:55:45,150 --> 00:55:49,830
That's what when you look at a how you define. You're reading a mask.
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:54,450
I know the name that's in the classical that.
00:55:54,690 --> 00:56:00,150
That's why I said on the boom. Uh, the vibration was great.
00:56:00,670 --> 00:56:06,210
Stories engaged. It made me feel that more than just a name on a page.
00:56:06,690 --> 00:56:11,430
Because I felt like that's all my life has become. You just read about me on Instagram.
00:56:11,820 --> 00:56:16,290
You see a few you hear on the case. I like this more than a court case.
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:23,760
I'm a good person, my mama and I'm sad. And for everybody here listening to my phone, listen to a court matter.
00:56:24,390 --> 00:56:28,920
That's what gave me a sense of fame. Um, alongside with my poetry.
00:56:30,230 --> 00:56:35,150
But I am my own person. You know, I handle every situation and conversation that I have.
00:56:35,510 --> 00:56:41,990
I try to handle it with care and respect, because I know that the creator of the universe is watching everything I do,
00:56:42,770 --> 00:56:46,580
and I appreciate every single person in this audience.
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:50,900
God knows. God be with you guys and guys.
00:56:51,230 --> 00:56:54,590
Give you guys peace and prosperity and abundance. Thank you very much.
00:56:56,360 --> 00:57:00,170
Like this. I would like to say thank you so much.
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:05,329
I'm with a group called Mothers Coming Together. I very truly listen to you.
00:57:05,330 --> 00:57:08,900
And you touch my back and we will be okay if I for you.
00:57:09,500 --> 00:57:14,540
So thank you so much, because your story will never be untold again.
00:57:14,870 --> 00:57:22,030
We won't be here standing up. Ready? Very much.
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:29,750
We're really fortunate to have the stars aligned today, that we could be together and hear from all of you.
00:57:32,100 --> 00:57:39,840
Thank you. So the event's over now? Yeah, I think I think we're on to the next session.
00:57:39,930 --> 00:57:44,880
So thanks again. Uh, well, I feel like they probably came by everyone.
00:57:45,330 --> 00:57:48,330
Uh, by Lamar. Thank you. Uh, thanks.