On this day (July 16) in 1990, a trial in which the plaintiffs claimed that Judas Priest caused the suicide of two fans began. The families of the two young men in question alleged that the band laced their song “Better by You, Better than Me” from Stained Class contained subliminal messages that urged listeners to take their lives.
In December 1985, Raymond Belknap, 18, and James Vance, 20, spent the day drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and listening to Judas Priest’s 1978 album, Stained Class. That evening, the young men took a 12-gauge shotgun to a nearby church playground and attempted suicide. Belknap died instantly. Vance, however, survived but disfigured himself in his suicide attempt. He died of a suspected drug overdose in 1988.
Vance and his parents filed a lawsuit against the band and CBS Records for $6.2 million. The case against Judas Priest went to court in 1990. They claimed that the song “Better by You, Better than Me” contained subliminal messages that said “do it,” “let’s be dead,” and “try suicide.” The plaintiffs alleged that the band had used “backward masking” to hide the supposed messages in the song.
According to an in-depth article by Timothy E. Moore for Skeptical Inquirer, the band’s legal team attempted to argue that anything contained on an album, including subliminal messages, should be protected under the First Amendment in a pre-trial motion. However, Justice Jerry Carr Whitehead disagreed. As a result, the case went to trial.
Rob Halford Reflects on the Judas Priest Trial
According to a Rolling Stone feature, Rob Halford testified that Judas Priest had not hidden any messages in their music. Furthermore, he pointed out that the sounds the plaintiffs claimed were subliminal messages were his exhaling while singing. In December 1990, the judge dismissed the case.
In the feature, Halford recalled walking up the courthouse steps every day and being met with fans holding signs and showing support. The mood was different inside the courtroom, though. “Then there was the tension and the sadness in the courtroom, because at the heart of the matter were those two guys that lost their lives tragically,” he wrote. “These two boys were massive Priest fans, and that made it even more heartwrenching that this terrible combination of the night and the drugs and the booze and their state of mind turned into something quite terrible,” he added.
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