A$AP Rocky was acquitted of the charges against him in his criminal trial, but one of the jurors has said the rapper was lucky to avoid a conviction.
Rocky has been embroiled in a legal battle since his arrest in April 2022 after he was charged with two counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The “Peso” rapper was involved in an altercation with his former friend, A$AP Relli, who accused him of firing a gun at him in November 2021.
Although Rocky, real name Rakim Mayers, was acquitted of the charges against him, one of the jurors in his trial has opened up about the thought process before arriving at their verdict.
In a chat with freelance journalist Nique at Nite, the unidentified female juror spoke candidly about the decision not to convict the rapper.
She said, per BET, “Everybody was really focused on delivering justice. I think that we really took our time. We discussed all the issues, all the questions that we had, we clarified those, we really kind of looked over some pieces of the evidence that people wanted to see a little bit more closely.”
The juror added, “And I think that we did the best we could with the instructions that we had, and with the evidence that we had.”
The juror also shared that though a vote suggested that the jury leaned toward a verdict, some jurors had their doubts.
She explained, “I think we kind of were almost at the verdict [but] we had a couple of people, including myself, who … still had some questions and we were all thinking that a crime had been committed.”
The woman added, “But the thing is with the instructions we had and with the law, we didn’t think there was enough evidence to convict.”
The prosecution claimed Rocky fired a gun at Relli, but his defense team countered by stating that he used a prop gun, which he carried for security purposes.
However, the rapper’s defense didn’t convince most jury members. The juror said, “I think most of us felt it was a gun. Just from the behavior on the videos and from some of the testimony.”
She added, “Unfortunately, a lot of the witnesses—we didn’t consider all of their testimonies to be reliable.”
The juror also highlighted how the lack of the alleged gun, which was never recovered, further fueled skepticism and created a significant gap in the prosecution’s case.
She said, “I didn’t really believe it. I didn’t think that … they had really convincing evidence that it was a prop gun. It was kind of a little mystery the way it disappeared, and they couldn’t produce it as evidence. So some of the testimony did not sound accurate or truthful.”