On May 22, Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Rick Brown ruled that Orcutt resident Anthony Murillo’s rap song “Remix for Life II” failed to provide sufficient evidence of a threat to Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2 from the Shane Villalpando sexual assault case.
The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office filed a motion for judicial case review after Judge Patricia Kelly made a similar ruling in March.
The rapper faced felony charges for allegedly threatening the Jane Does in his song by calling them by their first and last names and dubbing them “bitches” and several other derogatory terms because they “snitched” on his friend, Villalpando, who was convicted in July 2013 of three felony counts of unlawful sex with a minor. Villalpando was sentenced to one year in jail and five years’ probation for the crimes.
In “Remix for Life II,” Murillo sings, “I said go and get the Feds, ’cause you gonna end up dead/You gonna be laying on that bed, ’cause I’m coming for your head, bitch.”
The song also included lyrics about hunting snitches and mounting their heads on the wall like deer.
“The truth is that the evidence doesn’t point completely in one direction or the other,” Brown said, calling the song “vulgar” and “misogynistic.”
“There’s different things that fall on both sides of the line,” the judge told a packed courtroom.
Brown ultimately decided the song veered closer to being protected by the First Amendment because most of it was made as an expression of frustration about Villalpando being in jail.
He said the song “falls more on the First Amendment side because at no time does Murillo threaten the victims by name … directly to them or clearly to them” and that “the intent of the song is rhyming rather than threat.”
Brown said the fact that the song was posted to social media and not directly delivered to the victims also played a part in his ruling.
This reasoning didn’t sit well with the case prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Karapetian, who said, “The fact that it was lyrics that rhyme shouldn’t change this court’s analysis.”
She said doing so would cause a “miscarriage of justice.”
The Sun reached out to Jane Doe 2 and her family in an email after the ruling.
“We understand music of any kind is freedom of speech. The ability to express one’s feelings or frustration is welcomed and celebrated in music,” Jane Doe 2’s mother said in the email. “But what Judge Brown said was that as long as we sing it in a rhyming song, we can threaten anyone. No one is safe, as long as it rhymes. … [The court] had an opportunity here to make a statement about bullying and threats.
“… A bully is a bully, and what [Murillo has] done is reprehensible. It’s sad that our Santa Maria judges are too weak to protect the victim,” she said.
Murillo and his family declined to comment on the ruling except to say, “The truth was revealed.”
This article appears in May 29 – Jun 5, 2014.