DJ Clutch Blog
While the rap star was heading to his sentencing after pleading guilty in a 2007 gun case, a fire shut down the courthouse and postponed the already-delayed proceeding.
Having braced to start up to a year behind bars, he was unhappy about the postponement, said his lawyer, Stacey Richman.
"Once you make up your mind to do something, you want to do it," she said.
The sentencing may be rescheduled for Wednesday, though court officials were still scrambling to determine Tuesday afternoon when Manhattan's main criminal courthouse could reopen after the smoky basement blaze. It left eight people with minor injuries and forced about 1,000 to flee the building.
The Grammy Award-winning rapper is expected to get a yearlong jail term after pleading guilty in October to attempted criminal possession of a weapon. He admitted having a loaded gun on his tour bus when it was stopped after a Manhattan show in July 2007.
If he's back in court Wednesday, he could cross paths with fellow platinum-selling rapper Ja Rule, arrested separately on a gun-possession charge after playing the same concert. Ja Rule, known to the court as Jeff Atkins, happens to have a court date Wednesday; he has pleaded not guilty.
Lil Wayne, 27, was initially due to be sentenced and start his term last month, but the date was pushed back so he could have surgery on his gemstone-encrusted teeth.
He had bid a drawn-out adieu to friends and fellow artists, including a Rolling Stone cover story last month and a video blitz this past weekend. He said in a video clip sent Monday to MTV News that he shot footage for seven music videos with various artists in one night over the weekend.
Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Carter, has been one of the genre's most prolific, ubiquitous and profitable figures in recent years. His "Tha Carter III" was the best-selling album of 2008.
His latest album, "Rebirth," was released last month.
PHILADELPHIA – After six years of legal wrangling and one Supreme Court review of Janet Jackson's infamous Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction," CBS argued anew Tuesday that it should not be held responsible for the half-second of nudity.
The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia had thrown out the FCC's $550,000 fine against CBS as arbitrary, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court kick it back down for review. The Supreme Court pointed to its ruling in a Fox Television-led challenge, when it said the FCC could threaten fines over the use of a single curse word on live TV.
"There were considerable alarm bells about deviating from the script," Lewis told the 3rd Circuit panel. "CBS had a duty to investigate."
CBS complained that the FCC had previously applied the same decency standards to words and images — and excused fleeting instances of both.
Judge Marjorie Rendell seemed to agree, noting that the FCC could have stated in its rules that nudity was another thing entirely from bad language.
"(The FCC) had the opportunity to say nudity is different. They didn't," she said. "I'm trying to figure out how CBS or anyone else can be put on notice ... when the FCC does not draw any distinction at all between the two fleeting things."
Lewis replied that the duration of the offense is not the only factor, but must be weighed along with the content of the material, in this case Jackson's bare breast.
"They have no argument that the image was not indecent," he said. "While fleeting, it was patently offensive."
The three-judge panel is the same one that heard CBS' original appeal of the FCC fine, siding with the network in 2008. The judges noted the Supreme Court's directive to review their handiwork. Yet they peppered CBS for other angles that might support their decision.
Corn-Revere complained that the FCC, through ad hoc decisions, was effectively changing its decency standards without telling anyone. What's more, he said, the agency applies them capriciously.
"So if the 3rd Circuit got it wrong in our first opinion, how could CBS be expected to get it right?" Chief Judge Anthony Scirica asked.
The Fox Network case involves brief profanities uttered by entertainers Bono, Nicole Richie and Cher, sometimes on award shows.
The 3rd Circuit judges could remand the CBS case to the FCC for more fact finding. They did not indicate when they would rule.
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