Young Thug Encourages Law Students to Become Defense Attorneys: ‘Everybody Makes Mistakes’
Young Thug has a new lease on life after being released from jail last week on a plea deal, and he’s thankful for attorneys like his lawyer Brian Steel.
Thugger made a virtual special guest appearance over FaceTime during Steel’s Emory Law School class lecture on Wednesday (Nov. 6), where he was preaching the importance of defense attorneys, as videos online show.
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“We had a situation that was daunting towards my life and I think that the justice system could be bad,” Thug said to the group of students while reflecting on his 700-plus-day stint behind bars. “You know, sometimes it could be bad, and you gotta always look at it, like, they’re there to put us in prison and you guys are here to keep us from prison.”
The 33-year-old Atlanta rapper then made the case for the aspiring legal experts to become defense attorneys rather than working as prosecutors.
“I think you guys should become lawyers,” he suggested. “I think it’s very important to help people out of the situations they’re in the best you can. I mean, what side do you wanna be on? You wanna put people in prison for mistakes? Because everybody makes mistakes — we’re human.”
Thugger added: “And everybody in this classroom, you always need to know that you’re one mistake away. I feel like we need more people like Brian Steel on this earth. I think it’s very important to be a lawyer over every other thing. Lawyers and doctors were the two greatest things that were ever founded. You actually help people… Anything you need from me, I’m here always. We need y’all.”
Thug got a laugh out of the class while hyping up Steel as “the best person possible” and claimed that defense attorneys are doing a version of “God’s work.”
Young Thug — born Jeffery Williams — reached a plea deal on Oct. 31, and was released with no more time to be served, but will be on probation for the next 15 years.
“I know you’re talented, and if you choose to continue to rap, you need to try to use your influence to let kids know that is not the way to go and that there are ways out of poverty besides hooking up with the powerful guy at the end of the street selling drugs,” Judge Paige Reese Whitaker said to Thug.
Thugger ended up serving more than two years in jail after repeatedly being denied bond since his arrest in May 2022. The YSL RICO case became Georgia’s longest-running criminal trial ever, and isn’t finished yet, with two co-defendants still on trial.
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