Eminem in the Supreme Court: Read Below
The Supreme Court assembled in Washington, D.C. Monday to hear the case that thrust this First Amendment issue back into the forefront after Killer Mike penned a forceful op-ed pushing against the justice system’s use of rap lyrics as acceptable evidence. Eminem is a prime example. As Elonis Vs. United States got started, the Detroit rapper was heavily referenced.
Eminem Lyrics are quoted by Supreme Court Justice during a case hearing this week. The Court hearing for the Case Elonis V. United States begins in Pennsylvania in 2010. The Case features a 31-year-old man named Anthony Elonis who was convicted by police in 2010 for making threats on Facebook about his ex-wife, a female police officer, and an elementary school. All the threats are in the lyrical form posted by Anthony Elonis. After the years of hearing for his case, Supreme Court charged him with multiple counts for online threats made by him and sentenced 44 months in prison.
“’97 Bonnie and Clyde,” a Slim Shady LP murder-fantasy in which the rapper’s character and his young daughter, an unwitting accomplice, puts his wife’s body in “a nice bed for mommy at the bottom of the lake,” was the song Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. recited to his colleagues Supreme Court judges.
Anthony Elonis defended himself as he said the threats made by him are only Rap Lyrics, his Lawyer said that the Lyrics posted by his client are inspired by Detroit Rapper Eminem who is famous for his Offensive Lyrics and Rap throughout his career. Anthony and his Lawyer said that the lyrics are only fictional just like the Rapper who often Raps Offensively and had made offensive lyrics for his own mother and Ex-Wife Kim.
“There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts,” Anthony Elonis posted as a status update under the pseudonym “Tone Dougie”. But Elonis said that he was just expressing his Emotions just like Eminem who’s favorite pastime is threatening people in his Music.
Anthony Elonis in his defense said that he was influenced by Eminem’s songs like Guilty Conscience, Kill You, Criminal, and 97 Bonnie and Clyde. Eminem is famous for fantasized about songs about killing his ex-wife in Records like ‘Kill You’ of Album “The Marshall Mathers LP” and ’97 Bonnie and Clyde’ of “The Slim Shady LP”.
