What Happens Now in Young Thug’s YSL Trial?

More than two years since the arrest of the star Atlanta rapper Young Thug on racketeering, gang conspiracy and weapons charges, his trial alongside five co-defendants is already the longest in Georgia’s history. And it is nowhere near finished.

On Monday, some 19 months after the start of jury selection and nine months following opening statements, the jury will return to the courtroom to hear testimony for the first time since June 17.

They will do so in a changed landscape: Judge Ural Glanville, who had been presiding over the case since the start, was instructed to step down last month and was replaced by Judge Paige Reese Whitaker following a series of heated back-and-forths and motions from the defense about the handling of an uncooperative witness for the prosecution.

About 75 witnesses have testified so far, and prosecutors have told Judge Whitaker that they plan to call some 105 more; estimates backed by the new judge predict the trial will likely last through the first quarter of 2025.

But the appointment of Judge Whitaker — actually the case’s third judge, because of another typically dramatic twist — is in some ways a fresh start, as she attempts to put a runaway train of a trial back on track.

“This has been a long-running and multifaceted proceeding,” Judge Whitaker wrote in one of many decisions she had to make before the case could resume. “Challenges have been myriad and formidable. Frustrations may have been mounting while fortitude was waning.”