High court won’t hear rapper’s plea over his song’s role in murder conviction

OTTAWA — A murderer won’t get a chance to argue in the Supreme Court that his conviction should be overturned because a rap lyric he wrote was improperly allowed into evidence.

The high court has refused to hear the appeal from Lamar Skeete, who was convicted in 2012 of killing Kenneth Mark as payback for testifying against Skeete in a previous case.

The judge at Skeete’s trial allowed the Crown to put forward evidence that he had posted to a website a composition including the lyric: “Real niggaz don’t crack to the coppers.”

The Ontario Court of Appeal took a fresh look at the question and concluded the evidence was indeed admissible, saying it helped confirm Skeete’s retaliatory motive for killing Mark.

In its decision, the appeal court noted that the trial judge had told jurors to give the song as much or as little importance as they thought it deserved in deciding the case.

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The trial judge had also explained that the jury’s decision must be founded on evidence, not bias or prejudice.

The Canadian Press