R. Kelly's attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, came on 'TMZ Live' Tuesday to discuss her client's SCOTUS filing in more depth -- and she made a pretty compelling argument.
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PeopleTranscript
00:00R. Kelly wants the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his appeal, basically, that says my conviction
00:11in Illinois should be overturned.
00:16And the reason is they charge me for under a law that didn't exist when I committed the
00:22crimes, as they say.
00:23Did this come up during the trial?
00:25Yes.
00:26They raised this issue pretrial, and it was denied.
00:33The government's position is that they admit that they applied a statute of limitations
00:39that did not exist at the time the conduct was allegedly committed.
00:43But they're saying we were permitted to extend it.
00:46It didn't harm him.
00:47It didn't violate what is known as the ex post facto clause.
00:50And our position is not so fast.
00:53The lawmakers, Congress, passed a law that was intended to apply prospectively.
00:58So when they extended the statute of limitations, they didn't say, oh, you can apply it to cases
01:04that existed or the conduct happened before this.
01:07But moving forward, we're going to make it we're going to extend the statute of limitations.
01:12So what we're saying is when they did that, they were not permitted to apply it to conduct
01:18that occurred in the 1990s.
01:20The government has to interpret these statutes as they were intended to be applied.
01:25And they're taking great liberties with it.
01:27And they did so in this case.
01:29The ends justifies the mean types means type of thing.
01:33And I think the US Supreme Court will be really interested because it doesn't this isn't just
01:36an R. Kelly issue.
01:38This is all about do we give the government the power to take liberties with statutes
01:43that were not intended to apply as they're applying them?
01:46The US Supreme Court is under attack in a very big way.
01:51President Biden is going to propose legislation to change the way to change term limits, all
02:00sorts of things.
02:01There are people talking about packing the court.
02:04There are people who want Alito and Thomas removed.
02:07They are under fire right now.
02:09Do you think they that politics will play a part in their decision on whether to hear
02:16the case?
02:17Because if they hear the case, and if they overturn the conviction, there is going to
02:22be a torrent of criticism.
02:25Sure, because it's R. Kelly, right.
02:27But I like the Supreme Court for this issue, frankly, because the Supreme Court seems to
02:32understand that we have a government that's run amok, that we have prosecutors who have
02:39run amok.
02:40They are taking extraordinary liberties with statutes that were never intended by Congress,
02:46exceeding their authority, essentially, in so many different ways.
02:52Now, I get it.
02:54This particular defendant, they may believe, you know, shouldn't be the beneficiary of
02:58it.
02:59But again, there are much greater principles at stake.
03:02And I hope and I believe that the US Supreme Court can ultimately they're not so they understand
03:08what's at stake.
03:09And it's not just about R. Kelly, it's about everybody.
03:12And do we let the government continue to run amok in these federal prosecutions, whoever
03:17the defendant is?
03:18And I think the Supreme Court can do that.
03:21And I think we have a good chance of getting cert granted.