Law&Crime Sidebar - 7 Most Heated Moments in YNW Melly’s Double Murder Trial So Far

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

YNW Melly’s double murder trial has been filled with objections, arguments, and fierce interactions. The rapper, born Jamell Demons, stands accused of killing two of his friends and staging the murders as a drive-by shooting. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks down the seven most heated moments in Melly’s trial so far.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Good morning. How are you today? Not good. Are you cold? No, I'm just, you know, I just feel comfortable. Are you nervous? I feel threatened. We recap some tense moments so far in the YNW Melly double murder

trial. Welcome to Sidebar presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Well, it certainly hasn't been all smooth sailing in the YNW Melly double murder trial out in Florida. The murder on my mind rapper, whose real name is Jamel Demens, is charged with

the actual murders of his two friends and fellow YNW group rappers Christopher Thomas Jr. or YNW. Juvie and Anthony Williams or YNW Sack Jacer. The men were found shot to death on October 26, 2018, after Melly's co-defendant, Cortland Hortland, YNW. Bortland, pulled up to the hospital with the bodies of Thomas and Williams in the car, claiming they were all the victims of a drive-by shooting. However, the evidence has suggested that this was not drive-by shooting, but a staged drive-by shooting, and that the shots actually came from inside the vehicle.

Prosecutors say that Mellie was the shooter and that he made sure to get out of the car before Bortland arrived at the hospital. The prosecution even highlighted how the defendant was a member of a gang called G-Shine Bloods. And we can't forget that there is a lot at stake here because the death penalty is on the table

if Mellie is convicted. It used to be that you needed a unanimous vote for the jury in order to impose the death penalty. But now the law has changed in Florida. All you need is an eight. to four vote by the jury. And like I said, things have gotten a bit heated at times during the course of this trial. So we wanted to recap seven tense moments that have happened in that courtroom so far.

And I want to start with the testimony of Felicia Holmes. She is the mother of YNW. Mellie's ex-girlfriend. Now, she's relevant because she allegedly initially told police that Mellie was on face time with her daughter on the night of the shootings. So things became quite awkward when the prosecution grilled Holmes on her change in story. Do you remember anything the defendant said on that video? Not for me. No, I don't. Did you have an opportunity to read the statement you gave in 2018?

I read the statement. Okay. I don't recall. I don't remember anything from my statement, but I do remember my deposition from December 22. the deposition that would have been six months ago? Yes. Okay. I want to go and when you spoke, remember speaking with law enforcement in December of 2008?

I remember speaking with them, but I couldn't, I don't remember what they look like. I don't remember their names, but I do remember college to someone. Okay. So Ms. Holmes, I want to ask you, were you honest and truthful with law enforcement when you spoke with them? I would hope so. I mean, it was 2018. I looked through a lot from that year, so I'm not sure where my mind is it was at that time. Did you lie to law enforcement?

enforcement? I would hope not. I don't remember my, I don't remember my, I don't remember what I said back. It was like five years ago. Oh, of course, of course. I understand it's been a long time. So in terms of the time frame, that was closer in time to the incident of October 26th of 2018? If that's where you guys are saying, it is. You don't even remember? I don't remember, since 2018 was a very hard year for me. My husband just left a prison. My father died. I had a lot of one so I was really out of it okay and in terms of your conversations with the police officers that morning yes I do remember that they kind of bullied me and threatened my daughter to take her to jail for accessory I put back I do remember that yes

and in terms of the statements that you made about what happened you don't have any recollection of did you read this statement multiple times I looked at it and I I just didn't call it, and I, you know. And so you indicated, you hoped you were truthful with law enforcement. Yes, I do. I have to ask you to be more definitive. Were you truthful? I don't remember what I said to them that thing.

So if I was to tell you something now, I could be lying. I don't want to lie to understand because you're going to take me to jail. So I'm saying what you say. I don't want you to say anything. I want you to tell the truth. Okay. So Ms. Holmes, with regards to that day, did you lie to law enforcement? I just have to answer.

And in terms of your appearance here today, you don't want to be here. You don't want to be here. You made me come here. I did. And in terms of you were served with a subpoena. Never served me. And so you were ordered by the court to show up. You never served me originally.

That was a lie. That was a lie. And in terms of your job, yes. Did you quit your job? I got fired because you put me in jail. And prior to that, before you were put in jail, did you put your job? No. Okay.

So you never quit your job? I had to leave because you were, until my lawyer, they put it warrant out for me. So I had to leave my job. Okay. So you left your job? Yes. Yeah, she's basically signaling that she's pressured by the prosecution, that she doesn't want to be there. And the state is grilling her on maybe her lying and that she's not a very cooperative witness.

So the prosecution was basically treating her like a hostile witness. And they even suggested and introduced what would be controversial evidence that Ms. Holmes sent an Instagram message about becoming a snitch for the state if YNW. Mellie's camp refused to financially take care of her. So, Ms. Holmes, is it your state? statement testimony that you never stated the promises that were made to us by Y&W for me to quit my job and they would take care of us for all lives. They didn't want us talking with prosecutors, but now they've all disappeared. You've never said that before. Objection, Your Honor.

Move for a mistrust. Thank you. That's a big allegation right there. And I will tell you, as you're about to see, the defense didn't take that lying down. But Ms. Holmes went on to say, direct. that she felt threatened by the prosecution. This happened during her cross-examination by the defense and when she was also questioned by the state. When you first took the stand, you said, I feel threatened.

Yes, sir, I do. Who do you feel threatened by? Christine. Your eye. What the rules? Christine Bradley, the prosecutor. This prosecutor. Yes, I did.

Thank you. You said you feel threatened by me, of course. No. Did you fail to appear from numerous court appearances? No, I've never served me live. Okay. You even went so far as to hire an attorney. Yes, I'm not to show up.

I sure did. And as the state offered you any money? The state basically has the, on a monitor. I could go to my job with this. It's embarrassing. I think I'm a criminal. The state has to run my life. And in terms of your feelings,

and ill will towards the state and myself. I just feel like you've got a innocent people. And does that influence? your testimony today. It's my testimony. I'm just, I'm telling you. I'm telling you. That's not.

Excuse me. Hold on. Only one of you can talk at a time. You ask the question, counsel, you answer it. And when you wait, let her finish your question. And then once she starts answering the question, you let the witness answer a question, all right? Yes, all right.

So the right question is non-responsive on that one. Ask your question. So, Ms. Holmes, in terms of the court order that was issued, yes. You're aware that that was found to be valid? No, I'm not aware of that at all. Okay. You hired an attorney to go and represent him with the court this report to you?

He had to hire an attorney because he tried to be in his bar. And that's all statements. Objection. Excuse me. Counsel, you're not testifying. I agree. Excuse me. You ask a question.

All right? That's it. You asked a question. And so, with regards to that you hired an attorney. Yes. And you then tried to get any. order to court order for hiring you to be here in court thrown out no what I did was I hired a time because you were saying you certainly that's a pin that you

never served and that was signed to you valid you never served mr. pin that was never served me never served me I've never seen a subpoena for me notice but she said to serve those are not my address your testimony is that you have never been served to appear in court judge and that's an answer sustained excuse sustained and so with regards to your feeling right have I ever any sort of physical violence against you do you have any written threats from me it's intimidating you've intimidated me this whole time and in terms of your participation in this case yes you understand that you were

served a subpoena to appear for today you serve as a subpoena after you arrested me and serve as a pen at the jail I don't remember and you understand you're your pursuance that forward on you and that requires under the law to comply with court orders to and that compel their attendance and witness. I think they're fine. And after this bombshell testimony, the fireworks really didn't end there, because the defense moved for a mistrial, meaning they asked the judge, they asked the court to end this trial

right now. They based this on the idea that improper evidence was introduced by the state. heard by the jury, and it was so prejudicial that they can no longer have a fair case. To put a witness on there for the purpose of introducing out-of-court statements that are otherwise inadmissible, instead of at least admitting that that was what the state intended to do it, advanced a ruse pretext through the state's own mouth. knowing very well that it wasn't proper, that the court had ruled that it should not and could not be done, and it does not somehow become relevant because they declare hostility, which they knew about from the inception.

The state made a representation to this court that it was a complete surprise. That's not a credible statement. I think it is incumbent upon his court to discern the veracity of that contention. The jury sat there while the state made implication after implication introduce admissible evidence after admissible evidence to the substantial prejudice of this defendant. And so not only did they do it after we raise the year, They did it after the court ruled against the state and admonished the state not to do just that. And they launched into that pursuit.

Mr. Demens has been prejudiced. This jury sat there and watched this fiasco unfold with at least 10, maybe 15 sidebars after every two questions. with the implications that were being, all all predicated on the implications and the inadmissible testimony that Ms. Bradley herself read into and spoke into the record. And for that reason, we think that it was deliberate. It is highly prejudicial. This jury has been tainted and we moved for a misdry. Now, to summarize that, they are arguing that the state tried to introduce evidence that they

weren't allowed to introduce through a back door. The judge listened to that argument, listened to the state's response, he took it under advisement, but ultimately denied the mistrial motion and allowed this trial to go on. Okay, now, when we talk about not the smoothest of moments in the Y&W Melly trial, I do want to focus a bit more on this judge, Broward Circuit Judge John Murphy. And there were a couple of moments that I'd like to highlight. So during the testimony regarding cell phone evidence, the defense brought up the issue that the state emailed them a report on this cell phone data the morning of court and that they didn't have a physical copy in their hands to review and look at. So they asked as a professional courtesy if the state could print them off the documents.

Listen to how that went down. So I have an email, but I'm asking for people for. so I can follow along. Understood. Yes, yes, that's exactly. Thank you. So can you make copies for those? I have printed.

I found all of them. If there's one that she's missing, I'm happy to do so, pull them up again. I printed them all this morning. Council's suggesting she doesn't have them, so I just want to make sure she has it. Of course, and I've all been turned over via email. This is all in there, the original copies as well,

that were provided. Counsel does not have the ability to print something out in the courtroom now. She's asking counsel, Ms. Raven, with a rejection from the copy of it was to provide our copy. I'm happy to do so. I just need to know exactly which one she says she's missing and which one she says she has. I don't want to have to duplicate them if it's possible.

None of the documents she's published. So just give me a courtesy. You print all of them out. Yeah. All right. Can we take a break? Well, that's very time. We can.

But can we finish this first? Oh, yes. I thought you're going to make copies of all the document. So she has in her hand some of them. All right. So I just want to make sure I don't double printing. Just double print that. Counsel's suggesting she doesn't have it.

So it's just prim wall. Okay. Well, she does have some of it. That's what I'm going to make sure. What the rest of the down? I don't know, you know, you're saying it's, you're said. She's, counsel's suggesting she hasn't received those things. I just want her to get copies of it.

I don't want the, your constant back and foremost. She has it. Just get her the copies. That's it. It's easy. Just get her the copies. Seems like it should be pretty straightforward, right? Just print some documents for the opposing side, but of course, not so simple.

And the judge clearly got irritated. But things took a turn. And they took a turn when the judge found that the state engaged in a discovery violation. This is a big no-no. You see, the state can't introduce something into evidence and use it in their case. If they haven't shared it with the defense, they can't be an ambush on the defense. there could be no surprise attacks. This all happened outside the presence of the jury,

but Mellie's team argued that the state was conducting a new test on existing evidence that produced new results that weren't shared with the defense. Well, Judge Murphy agreed that the prosecution, they weren't acting very fairly. That seems to me to be a Richardson violation. They're discovered a time ago, and you know about it, and you're not telling them about it until we're here in the court. So as far as I'm going to have been already as concerned, And I think that's a discovery violation.

And I'm finding it to be a discovery violation. I think the only way it can be curious, he's not going to testify about this second procedure that's not coming in from. Same thing, if you want to keep investigating a case, you can do it, you can find a sculptory information. You know, maybe change your mind as to how you proceed with the case, and I don't have a problem.

You can investigate whatever you want to investigate. But as far as using new discovery that you're coming in, I think a cutoff needs to be happening, because this is what's going on. We're going to have this. If you find something new, there's a hole, as counsel describes it, then you try to find evidence to plug up the hole.

That's new, new discovery. The defense doesn't have an opportunity to depose the witness. Defense doesn't have an opportunity to do X, Y, and Z. And that's just not the way it should be. It shouldn't be done by surprise. so so it's clear this was not a new item this was just this all of the information was both identical you found it you did you had a meeting with the detective in May when we're in hiatus because I'm on vacation all right got a meeting with them in May after we

picked a jury and when we're ready to or we're in the middle of jury selection you picked it you did it and you said what we hit he tells you or you You ask him, do you have more programs to go ahead and provide the information, and you find out there's another program, and he runs the program, does a different download with something other than Cellbrite, and therefore, you know, you have more information. Don't make the defense aware of it. You hold that to yourself.

You go ahead and put on a couple weeks of trial testimony, and then when it comes up after he, in cross-examination, point something, have, oh, you bring it up and say, well, you know, by the way, you know, I told him, the detective in our pretrial meeting, it came up, and he has the program, and we can use it, and we're doing it, all right? And, but you didn't, you don't tell them about it. You just go ahead and hold it, keep it close to the best yourself. Don't explain it to him. And then you say, when it comes up and try, I say, what was it? I don't have the report yet. You know, and that's why I didn't turn it over to him. It didn't disclose it's coming.

It seems to me that's not what's supposed to happen. Not supposed to happen, period. That's a discovered violation. Okay, so as far as the detective already, you know, in whatever other form he used, that's not coming in. Right? That's the sanction. If you have other information, other discovery that's in the works,

you know, you better share it with you is right now. If you don't have it, they're not aware of it now. It's not coming in unless there's something extraordinary that pops up. And just because, you know, you find out there, they have additional capabilities and you want to retest something, that's not extraordinary on my way of thinking. I'm not familiar with what the case law says. It just seems to me that this is a fundamental fairness thing. You have evidence.

You need to turn it over to him. If you didn't turn it over to him, you can't use it. That's really the basic. So that's a win by the defense. there, that the prosecution can't use that evidence, but it wasn't all wins for the defense. At one point, the defense tried to keep cell phone evidence from the jury saying that a cell phone in question couldn't be directly linked as belonging to YNW Melly, especially since it may have been used by someone else after Mellie was arrested.

But the judge wasn't having it. There's also evidence that we have that establishes that that phone was being used. The phone comes up as the name Sack Chaser Howard. Sack Chaser is the nickname of one of the decedents. That phone is used interchangeably so much that when you dial with it, it comes up with one of the decedent's name as the Identifier. It's in the name of Jamie King, not Jamel DeMittance. It was retrieved from James and Francois, not Jamel Demens.

So it's neither in his name. It wasn't retrieved from him, and it comes up with an ID. It was being used after the defendant was arrested. We have information here that indicates that, definitively. It shows the phone being used to call. It shows the same step data from that very unit after he is incarcerated. So it's obvious that it's being used by several other people. So we can't even say that it's his phone and the information there is therefore all relevance.

All information on it is as non-hersay because it's a statement. Not only is it being used by others to text, to call, being carried by others. Is it in somebody else's name retrieved from someone else? Where is the phone located? The phone was located. It was taken from the defendant's manager on February of 2019. The defendant was providing the passcode and information via jail calls to his manager to use it on that. And the phone also authenticated itself in terms of every single photo that is on that,

whether it be a selfie, a screenshot of a FaceTime conversation or anything of that goes back to this defendant. Then they have to establish it before they put it in, not after the fact. This is around account is being used and accessible to a number of people. This notion that, oh, it's his account, he's an artist. It's a public account that several people have access to. I'm sure you're going to be able to ask those type of questions, counsel. My thought is this, counsel, it's not fair to basically give me an inchworth of things to read, cases, to read, articles to read, saying it's how it's not, you know,

you know the methodology is and the the basically a dollar issue on it's not not clear it's not going to establish all those types of things that should have been pre-trial I haven't seen what's on the the the account I don't disagree with that council's telling me it's wrong because of X Y and Z there you're saying it's not but I don't know what what what is the 403 analysis what's more prejudicial and I haven't seen anything about that. I don't know what it is. I haven't seen it you haven't made me aware of it You're just saying it's something's more prejudicial than appropriate if it is I'm more than happy to go through one at a time with you and find out

But as far as who used the phone? What was it being done? Council's saying it's You know it's relevant to establish his phone. So I've made my ruling you've made your objection So everybody knows where they stand on it So that's just a sample of some of the heated battles and accusations between both sides. We still have more of a trial to go, and your guess is as good as mine as what will happen next. Thanks so much for joining us here on Sidebar, everybody. That's all we have for you. We really appreciate it.

Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.