Law&Crime Sidebar - Rapper YNW Melly Heads Back To Court For Double Murder Retrial This Fall

Episode Date: July 29, 2023

In a status hearing Friday, a Florida court put rapper YNW Melly on the October calendar for his double murder retrial. A judge declared a mistrial last weekend after jurors said they were deadlocked between convicting or acquitting him of first-degree murder. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy speaks with Florida state attorney Dave Aronberg who explains how the trial of his co-conspirator, YNW Bortlen, may complicate his chance of ever being free. LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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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. The retrial for rapper YNW Melly now set for October. We discuss how the trial of his co-conspirator might complicate things. Welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. I'm Ann Janette Levy. It's been a week since the judge in YNW. Melly's double murder case declared a mistrial. Jamel Demons faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of the 2018 murders of his two friends and fellow rappers, Chris Thomas Jr. and Anthony Williams, they went by YNW Juv and YNW Sack Chaser. Jurors deliberated for a little more than 16 hours before telling Judge Murphy they were indeed, deadlocked a second time. Friday morning, Mellie was back in court for a status hearing. Judge Murphy

wanted to set a trial date, and there were hints from Mellie's lawyer that a shake-up in the defense team might be in the works. I expect that by the end of the day that I will be on the team against it. Right now, jury selection in Mellie's retrial is scheduled for October 2nd, the same day as Cortland Henry's trial. The cases had been severed since Mellie faces the death penalty as a possible punishment, and Henry does not. So we don't know yet if they will indeed be tried together. Well, we can't try them together because he's seeking death on the car final. And they're not seeking death on the other one.

And Judge Siegel indicated that he was not going to do two of juries. Joining me to discuss the latest in the YNW Melly murder case is Dave Aaronberg. He is the state attorney for Palm Beach County, and he's with us to discuss everything we know about this and what happened in the status hearing. Dave, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. It's great to be back with you. Thanks for having me. One thing that I find confounding about this hearing today was the fact that assistant state attorney, Christine Bradley,

suggested to the judge that they try this case. on October 2nd at the same time that the trial for Cortland Henry, the co-conspirator, will be held. And she suggested trying them together with dual juries. The defense objected to that. And that's because this case or these two cases, Henry and Demons, had already been severed by another judge because Demons is facing the possibility of the death penalty. And Cortland Henry is not. So talk to me a little bit about how that would work and why that's likely not going to happen. As long as the prosecution is seeking the death penalty, I think the judge will sever the trials just like they did for the first trial. The tie always seems to go to the defendant. So

anything that jeopardizes a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial will make a judge go ahead and rule for the defendant's motion. And so I think it will be severed. Now, there are a couple reasons why maybe it won't. Number one, perhaps the prosecution will take the death penalty off the table. If they did, then there is no issue here, and you can try them together. It is to the benefit of the state to try them together. It's just more efficient. You don't have to do things again and again, do it all at once, and also you get a better chance of having them incriminate each other during the trial. It benefits a defense to sever it. That way they can point the finger at each other and get away with it. So this is what's going on. But I don't think

it should be automatically severed because the state is seeking the death penalty for Melly because it's only the penalty phase of the trial that would be different. Not the guilt phase. The guilt phase is the same. They're both capital crimes. You're seeking the death penalty on one, not the other, but that goes into the second part of the trial, the penalty phase only if Melly is found guilty. So you're telling me it is actually possible to have 12 jurors for two different defendants, 24 jurors plus alternates sitting in on the next trial, possibly if it's not severed? You could have two different trials, two different sets of juries. In one, you could have two separate trials altogether. I think it is a possibility, although I think it's unlikely,

that the prosecution can get one trial consolidated for both of them. And I think that would be a just solution here, especially because the prosecution puts a lot of energy and time into this, and you're going to have them do it now once, twice, three times, and if it's more hung juries, it's over and over again to get justice. And I thought the evidence was pretty overwhelming. So, of course, the prosecutor, maybe I'm a little biased, but gosh, I just want there to be justice.

and it's painful for the families to have to endure these endless delays. It's like they're being victimized the second time. So dropping the death penalty from Demens's case, do you see that as a possibility? Do you think the state attorney would consider doing that? Yes, I do think it's a possibility. It would solve a lot of problems. I think it would pretty much ensure the cases could be tried together. And I think you could perhaps convict Mellie more easily.

I think whenever it's a possibility of a decision, death penalty. There may be some jurors who just balk. Apparently, according to reports, it was one juror here, at least one who said pretty much from the beginning of deliberations that she was not going to convict him. And she was giving the prosecution, the stink eye for throughout the trial, according to reports. Now, whether that's true, but in the end, it was a hung jury, and at least one juror held out, and the jury didn't deliberate too long before they went to the judge and said, we can't come to an agreement. So I think it probably does, showed that at least one juror was saying, uh-uh, I'm not going along with this.

We heard the reports of the stink eye to the one juror. And it did seem very early that they were reporting that they were deadlocked for such a lengthy trial after, you know, six hours or so of deliberation to come out and say you're deadlocked after all of that testimony and all of that time. That seemed rather early to me. Yeah, that does tell you that there's a juror with his or her arms cross saying, you're never going to convince me. That's when you go to a judge said, hey, we're stuck.

It doesn't usually happen within the first six hours, but it looks like it happened then. So, Dave, what do you see going forward in this case? I mean, there were witnesses in this case who they could not get to testify. There are witnesses who have warrants out for their arrest because they are not responding to subpoenas. Is anything going to change? I mean, there is this whole no snitch culture in the urban community. And really, it doesn't matter if you're in an urban area or not. I mean, but it's more prevalent.

We see it more, it's more prevalent in these urban area shootings rather than things going on, going on in rural areas. There's more fear of retaliation. So what do you think is going to happen? Well, I think when you're talking about the culture in the rap community and the gangster rap community where, yeah, the snitches get stitches and rapping about murder, which Mellie did, that was his first big hit, is rewarded. and you try to get street red by being either someone who's been charged with a crime or for someone who was a victim of a drive-by. And so, you know, he had clear motive, according to the prosecution, because of his ties, not just in the rap community, but ties to the gangs.

And so there was motive there. And also there apparently was a financial motive, according to the evidence, there was a beef amongst the parties. And so to get a jury of his people, peers 12 of them to unanimously agree is is tough especially because prosecutors have to get it beyond a reasonable doubt and you don't have a murder weapon here and you have a high profile celebrity defendant so yeah all it takes is one juror and you've got a hung jury and you had that here but do you think the state's going to change its case at all could you see that because some because some of

this got a little bit it was almost like a little too much like the gang expert with going through all the texts and all of that and in the blood and the the brazy lady and all all of this stuff. Do you think it just got to be a little too much? Yeah, we prosecutors like to learn from jury verdicts. And I've had cases where we've had hung juries and we have changed our strategy, realizing that we need to do something different. And you will see something different, perhaps a more streamlined case. I think they had enough evidence.

But sometimes if you put on too much evidence, it becomes cumulative and it becomes confusing for the jury and they start to lose interest. And so I think you should focus on the fact that the shots came from within the car. Melly is shown getting in the car from the left rear side. And the shots in the head of the victims came from the left side, not to mention the DNA and phone calls. And a confession, a Snapchat confession. I did that. I know the defense saying, well, it could mean a lot of things.

I don't know. I did that pretty much means that he killed them to me. Well, we shall see what the next jury determines. And Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County. Thank you so much for coming on to talk with us. We really appreciate it. Thank you. That's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast.

You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcasts. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. Hit the subscribe button. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.