Rapper Young Buck (remember him?) has pleaded 'no contest' to the charges of 'assault likely to produce great bodily harm' relating to that fracas at the 2004 Vibe Awards. As you'll all vividly remember, this began when one Jimmy James Johnson went to pick a fight with Dr Dre, who was at the awards to pick up some lifetime achievement thing. In the fracas that followed Young Buck, real name David Darnell Brown and signed, of course, to Dre's Aftermath enterprise, unleashed a knife and stabbed Johnson.
Despite CCTV footage that showed Brown pulling a knife on Johnson, the rapper initially pleaded not guilty when charged with assault with a deadly weapon, possibly because that charge comes with an eight year jail sentence. Brown's defence said the CCTV footage was "deceiving". But after much legal shenanigans between prosecution and defence lawyers, the rapper altered his plea when faced with the lesser charge, which comes with three years probation and eighty hours community service.
Which seems a little unfair, because in the meantime Johnson got put away for a year for punching Dre. While I appreciate that, in playground vernacular, "he started it", you'd think stabbing someone would come with a higher penalty than landing a punch. Ah well, that's the American justice system I suppose. Talking of which...