San Diego Rapper, and Suspected Gang Member, Tiny Doo Faces Potential 25 Years in Prison Over Lyrics, Album Cover Depicting a Gun

The L.A. Times reports on the far frontiers of
when laws
barring conspiracy run into free expression:

Among the 15 suspected San Diego street-gang members charged in
a string of shootings is Brandon Duncan, an aspiring rap
singer.

Duncan, 33, who raps under the name Tiny Doo, is not
accused of providing the guns or being present at the nine
shootings that terrorized a neighborhood where the Lincoln Park
gang has long used violence to protect its turf.

Instead, prosecutors are going after Duncan over something else:
His latest album.

Entitled “No Safety,” the album features a picture of a gun and
bullets on the cover.

Prosecutors say that shows that Duncan fits the legal
definition of a gang member who “willfully promotes, furthers, or
assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that
gang.”

Duncan is a documented gang member with a “gang moniker” of TD,
according to the San Diego police….

Duncan’s attorney, Brian Watkins, argues that the use of a 2000
law to include Duncan in the case is “absolutely unconstitutional”
and a waste of taxpayers’ money by the district attorney…..

“It’s no different than Snoop Dogg or Tupac,” he said. “It’s
telling the story of street life,” with gritty details and
obscenity-filled language.

“If we are trying to criminalize artistic expression, what’s
next, Brian De Palma and Al Pacino?” Watkins said after visiting
with his client in county jail…..

Watkins made the same argument in San Diego County
Superior Court. But a judge this week ordered Duncan and other
defendants to stand trial….

….in court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Anthony Campagna noted of the
case against Duncan, “We’re not just talking about an album of
anything, of love songs.” The cover shows a revolver with bullets,
Campagna told the judge.

Deanne Arthur, a lawyer in Watkins’s office, guided me
to
the precise statute, 182.5, which reads in part:

any person who actively participates in any criminal
street gang, as defined in subdivision (f) of Section 186.22, with
knowledge that its members engage in or have engaged in a pattern
of criminal gang activity, as defined in subdivision (e) of Section
186.22, and who willfully promotes, furthers, assists, or benefits
from any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang is
guilty of conspiracy to commit that felony and may be punished as
specified in subdivision (a) of Section 182. 

So membership in the gang will be a necessary element the
state will have to prove to hit him with the notion that his album
constituted a crime as well.

ReasonTV reported on grand juries using rapping as
evidence of crime: