Rap Lyrics May - Or May Not - Add To Rap Sheet

By Amy E. Feldman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Can rap lyrics about shooting people be used as evidence against the writer of those lyrics who is on trial for shooting people?

When Vonte Skinner was under investigation for shooting and paralyzing a New Jersey drug dealer, police found a notebook with the rap lyrics he'd written that said: "I hit him with the Smithen; hauled off 15 rounds, seven missed him; two to the mask and six to the ribs, lifted and flipped him."

Sounds bad doesn't it?

Skinner was convicted, but on appeal, the New Jersey Supreme Court said that those lyrics should never have been heard by the jury. Here's why:

If the lyrics were written after the crime and described details that weren't publicly available, one could logically conclude that this was a statement made by the person who did it. Or if they described the person's plot before the incident, then they'd be admissible for evidence of a motive or plan. But here, the lyrics were written in a notebook about four years before this incident took place and didn't describe the actual incident.

As a result, the Court decided that the lyrics really only prove that this was a really bad guy, which would be good to know if you were deciding whether to date him, but too prejudicial to the people on the jury deciding his guilt for this crime.