Ever since going to prison for violating his probation due to a street biking ticket in 2017 and becoming a symbol for social injustice in America, the world has been both enraged and informed on Meek Mill’s ongoing legal battles.
From the officers who beat up and almost killed Meek when he was 18, to the crooked judge proceeding over his case, and the probation sentence itself — which has been basically all of his young adult life — Meek has been the poster child for prison reform.
Now, his story has turned another chapter.
Meek Mill’s legal team announced Tuesday that they’d been granted an opportunity to argue the rapper’s 2008 conviction on gun and drug charges in the Pennsylvania Superior Court and expects them to be overturned.
Meek has been trying to get his side of the story on the credibility the arresting officer heard ever since taking the charge. With arguments are scheduled for July 16 in Philadelphia, he’ll get his chance.
“We’re looking forward to the oral argument before the Superior Court of Pennsylvania and to, hopefully, having Meek’s conviction vacated,” Jordan Siev, Mill’s lawyer, said in a statement. “In light of the district attorney’s recent filing, where he supports the granting of a new trial to Meek and the recusal of Judge Brinkley, we hope to have this injustice rectified once and for all.”
Meek is not disillusioned at the privilege he’s been so graciously afforded due to his celebrity and network of friends. Talking to CBS This Morning after his release in April of last year, he admits being one of the hundreds of thousands of cases, that goes on today.
“I’m just lucky to have people of power and much influence to stand behind me and speak up. This happens to minorities on a daily basis where they don’t have a voice,” the rapper said, “and I just came from – it’s almost like cities…inside prisons where people have no contact with the world,” he said.
And he’s right. Jay-Z basically ate the legal fees, the Philadelphia Sixers co-owner Michael Rubin has been pulling strings with the people of influence in the state, and he simply has the best of the best — everyone doesn’t get that.
It’s why he, alongside these allies he made in the process and more, launched the coalition called Reform Alliance that will lobby for changes to state probation and parole laws just this year.
The hearing may be the last Meek has to go through to finally be off probation but he’s shown that he will continue to fight for others after even still.
Until then, peep the official video for one of his Championships cuts, “Oodles O’Noodles Babies.” The fan-favorite shows the vicious cycle of the criminal justice system in a way only Meek could tell.