“Murderer, murderer, take a life.” Can song lyrics convict a man of murder?

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Can someone’s song lyrics help convict them of murder?

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals is now trying to answer that question, years after a shooting that killed a man near Herman and Blank streets in Nashville.

The arguments revolve around some pretty big names that you’ll probably recognize, including Johnny Cash and Taylor Swift.

William Britton was arrested for the 2020 shooting death of Kendall Ostine. He was convicted of second-degree murder.

While no one disputes that Britton, a rap artist, fired the shots that killed Ostine, Britton’s attorney said the shooting was in self-defense and that prosecutors in court should not have used Britton’s own lyrics against him to get this conviction to bring about.

Court transcripts from the original trial reveal the prosecutor’s questioning of Britton’s lyrics while Britton himself was on the witness stand, asking: “In the song you say several times, ‘Killer Killer, take a life.’ Why would you put that text there?”

Britton’s lawyers objected to the question at the time, but the judge allowed it.

Britton is now appealing his conviction to the Tennessee Court of Appeals with the help of defense attorney David Raybin.

The appeals court heard arguments in the case this week.

“Imagine Johnny Cash is on trial for murder and the prosecutor says, ‘Mr. Cash, isn’t it true that you wrote a song that says, ‘I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die?'” Raybin said in his arguments to the three-judge jury.

“Or Bob Marley is on trial for shooting a police officer. ‘Mr. Marley, isn’t it true that you wrote a song that says, ‘I shot the sheriff?'”

Raybin argued that Britton was guilty of a much lesser crime and that his texts and his actions were two different things.

“Just because he sings doesn’t mean he’s carrying a gun himself at any given time,” Raybin said. “Because it’s art.”

The state says that of course Johnny Cash or Bob Marley were never on trial for murder. Prosecutors pushed back when Judge Camille McMullen raised questions about their argument.

“If it’s art, it’s not fact,” McMullen said.

“Art is autobiographical in some cases,” responded Lacy Wilber of the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. “As your Honor knows, Taylor Swift’s fans analyze every phrase and lyric in her song, and the jury was allowed to do the same in this case.”

“Songs are not written in a vacuum; Songs are written with context and with your life,” Wilber said.

The judges are now deciding on the question: What weight should song lyrics have and can they help convict someone of a crime?