Speaker 1: Opening statements have begun in the ASAP Rocky assault trial one day after the jury was sworn in in this case and today in court where the defense has been delivering its opening statements. Prosecutors wrapped theirs up a short while ago. Earlier, the Grammy-nominated rapper entered court through a swarm of photographers and journalists. ASAP Rocky, his real name is Rakeem Myers, he faces two felony charges for allegedly firing a semi-automatic gun at a former friend during a 2021 confrontation. He's pleaded not guilty and he also turned down a plea deal earlier this week. So if convicted now, he faces up to 24 years in prison. ASAP Rocky is linked romantically to Rihanna. They have two children together to discuss. Let's bring in ABC News legal contributor and trial attorney Brian Buckmeyer and ABC News contributor and Sirius XM radio host Mike Mews. Gentlemen, welcome. And Brian, first as ASAP Rocky's lawyers today, I guess they tried to end the case, start over after arguing that a firearms analysis report the prosecutors received shouldn't be admitted. What's going on here?

Speaker 2: Yeah, so when the defense shows up, they make this argument that a firearm evidence, the analysis used on the shell casing because no actual gun was recovered in this case, was turned over to them late last night into the early mornings. Prosecutors pushed back and made the argument that there's no what's called discovery violation because while law enforcement gave it to them late, they immediately once they had it, gave it to the defense. And so the judge says no one's going to talk about this firearm analysis during the opening statements. The judge I think even offered to help pay for analysis for the defense so they can kind of catch up and make the arguments when they need it. But it seems like, as you said, we're starting the opening statements, even though I think the defense made a strong argument as to why this evidence should either not be in the case or the very least try to throw out the case as it starts.

Speaker 1: Got it. Thank you for that, Brian. And Mike, so the prosecutors asked the jury to use their common sense here, but I guess what's going to be key in this case is the relationship between ASAP Rocky and the victim here. How do you read how common sense works here?

Speaker 3: That's a great question, as you asked, Terry, because how do you have common sense if you may not be aware of cultural competencies when it comes to really understanding the narrative of ASAP Rocky and who we see, too, with ASAP Relly? As I've been talking with you, Terry, throughout these last couple of days is the fact of lack of representation on this jury. And once the final jury got selected out of the 12, none of these jurors are Black. Now, that isn't to say that all those individuals cannot have understanding of cultural competency and can't have an understanding of hip-hop and hip-hop culture. But if we look at the laws of justice and that you have a jury of 12 that you'll be judged by your peers, one would question, is ASAP going to have the best ability to be judged fairly if there are no individuals that look like him? And so when it comes to asking the question of common sense, one has to square and say, how can we reconcile common sense when there may not be any understanding of cultural competency going forward? That is going to be something I'm going to be watching for along with this trial.

Speaker 1: And, Mike, if I can follow up on that, press you a little bit. So aren't there a lot of instances in trials, and Brian, you can jump in on this as well, where jurors are clueless, right, about the social milieu, about the vocabulary, about the technicality, if it's a business case or whatever like that. And then it's up to the lawyers to be effective in informing them and getting them up to speed on that. Does that make sense to you, Mike? What do you think? Oh, yeah, it definitely

Speaker 3: makes sense. And, of course, there's going to be more trials that will be more technical, and so juries have to get up to speed about. But if you look at a case that could typically have, like, a technical component to it, maybe dealing with, like, technology, artificial intelligence, software, there isn't too much of a received biases that come with it. Hip-hop has been such a very controversial genre for such a long period of time. Terry, dating back to, firstly, Nancy Reagan, when she viewed for censorship when it comes to hip-hop lyrics, right, and when it comes to hip-hop artists. And so hip-hop has had a very antagonistic dynamic with the American public. And so there's so many individuals that comes to perceive biases that are associated with hip-hop. A lot of individuals believe that hip-hop is the cause of so much violence that takes place today in society. So when you bring all of those factors into it, this isn't about bringing a jury up to speed on technicality aspect of it, but what happens is, we can't take away biases that are rampant throughout America and not having an understanding because of, in the language of hip-hop, there's so many things of entendres, right? We have double entendres, triple entendres, right? And so what may be seemingly as one thing to the naked ear or eye isn't exactly what is actually being said and stated. And so that is what I mean by cultural competencies and the challenge of reconciling to your question common sense with cultural competencies.

Speaker 2: Got it. That's very helpful. Brian, what do you think? Yeah, so I think what Mike is getting at, I don't want to speak for him, but it's the idea that every one of the witnesses that are going to come up are going to be ASAP Rocky, ASAP Relly, ASAP this. And I think the fear is that when you hear that, you don't want to make a connection in the same way that you might, for example, when we talked about YSL, when the government was talking about YSL being a gang. No one's going to think if you say ABC's Mike Muse and ABC's Brian Buckmeyer and ABC's Terry Moran that we're part of an ABC gang. No, that is the job in which we have. And I think the fear is that the affiliation of a collective of people who commit, who create music and fashion, that they may be inferred as being a part of a gang. And if that inference is there, then when there's a shooting involved, a juror might just think, you know what, they're all part of this ASAP gang. And so of course there's going to be shooting. And I think that's the fear that people have about the lack of, as Mike put it, kind of cultural competency.

Speaker 1: Got it. Very helpful. Brian and Mike, thanks very much. Appreciate it.