Law&Crime Sidebar - YNW Melly Prosecutors Spar with Rapper’s Legal Team After Entire Potential Jury Panel Struck

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

The judge in the Florida double murder case of Jamell Demons, also known as YNW Melly, dismissed an entire group of potential jurors after the defense allegedly misquoted the law. Now the prosecution is worried this could become a pattern. The Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the latest court filings with celebrity attorney Bradford Cohen.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Save 10% on your entire POM Pepper Spray order by using code LAWCRIME10% at https://bit.ly/POM-SIDEBARHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&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. Rapper YNW. Melly's murder retrial was supposed to get underway soon, but there's another delay, this time related to jury selection. We're talking with YNW. Mellie's former lawyer Bradford Cohen about the tension between the prosecution and defense and what insight these latest moves give us as we get closer to a new trial. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. So a whole new group of citizens were called to the Broward County Courthouse in the Fort Lauderdale area to potentially become part of the jury

for this double murder retrial of YNW Mellie. A jury that would decide not only if the rapper, whose real name is Jamel Demons, is guilty of killing his two friends, but also whether Demons should be executed. Yeah, because the death penalty would be on the table if Demons is convicted. So anybody who's been following this case with us here on Sidebar and Long Crime will know that Demons is accused of shooting Christopher Thomas, aka YNW Juv, and Anthony Williams, aka YNW SAC Chaser, inside of an SUV back in 2018. They were part of the YNW hip-hop collective with Demons.

they and several other young men were at a recording studio until the early morning hours the night of the murders. Thomas, Williams, Demons, and a fourth man, Cortland Henry, also known as YNW. Portland, they all got into the same car together to head towards Demons home, but they never arrived. Not long after they left the studio, Henry showed up at a hospital with Williams and Thomas bleeding out in the car. Demons was not there. Henry claimed that there had been a drive-by shooting, and Thomas and Williams had been shot in the head. But investigators say the evidence suggested the shooting looked like it happened from inside the car and that this was possibly staged to look like a drive-by shooting.

And so both Jamel Demons and Cortland Henry were charged with double murder. The two were being tried separately. Now, Demons first went to trial over the summer this year, and it lasted for several weeks. But in the end, the jury couldn't reach a unanimous verdict on guilt. So Judge John Murphy declared a mistrial. Well, now the court is in the process of picking a new jury for Demmon's second trial, and we are at the point where a potential jury pool has been whittled down, and attorneys are engaging in questioning of the jurors.

And there is a lot of drama happening at the moment in this voir dire or jury selection process, including a major complaint from the prosecutors. To help me break this down, I'm joined right now by renowned lawyer Bradford Cohen, who's famously represented Kodak Black, Little Wayne, even represented Y&W Melly at one point in time. Bradford, good to see you again, sir. Good to see you, too. Okay, so this is a bit of a complicated issue.

Let me break it down for everybody, and then we're going to get into it. So the state makes this filing, where they're taking issue with how a slate of jurors were excused. The defense apparently misstated the law in front of these jurors, telling the potential jurors that in order for them to find Demons guilty of murder, they would also have to show that he was in a gang because there's a gang enhancement charge in the indictment.

The state said, whoa, whoa, they objected, saying that's not the law. The jury can find him guilty of murder without finding that he was in a gang. There was a back and forth with objections and sidebars, seemingly confusion from one of the jurors, and so the jury panel was excused. The attorneys, the judge, they discussed what to do, and it was agreed that the judge should read the jury instruction to the potential jurors.

It's basically the law. Well, the defense said, hold on, if you now read that instruction to the jury, after what we, the defense just told them, we're going to lose all credibility in their eyes. And the court ended up striking the entire panel. So now the state says they're concerned that every time they raise an objection during the jury selection process and their objection is sustained or upheld, the defense is going to move to strike the panel of jurors because they don't want to look bad. So the state wants to end this pattern. Radford, that's the way I understand it. Have you ever seen an argument like this before? I've never seen an argument like this before because in these type of cases, these murder cases, and when there was a high stakes case, even if it's a felony punishable by life, you make every objection you can as a defense attorney.

It doesn't matter what the ruling is. You want to raise it because if you don't raise it, number one is you waive it, right? on an appeal if you lose, won't have that, you know, that kind of sword in your, in your armory. And then the other thing is you also want to raise it because you want to protect your, your client's interests as best that you can. So any single issue that you can come up with as a defense attorney, you want to raise it on objection. And if the judge, you know, buys your argument and then strikes a jury panel or does something else, he's taking away that possible appellate issue. So in this case, do I think that the defense really wanted to strike the whole

panel? I don't know if they really did or if they did that as more of a strategic move where the judge might have denied it and then that just raises another appellate issue if he didn't strike the panel. But I think in this case, the judge is doing everything possible to really take away any kind of possible appellate issue because he sees this case that might come back in the future in case there's a conviction. Hey there, everybody. I want to talk to you right now about Palm, which is the next generation of pepper spray.

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and absolutely loves it. You can learn more at palmpeper spray.com and use code law crime 10% for 10% off. I was thinking about it and I said to myself, if I was a juror and I listened to the defense and they misstated the law at the very beginning of the case, you know what? I would say, and then the law is reiterated to me the proper way, I could see the defense's argument, you know, that the jury's going to look at us like we're incompetent, like we don't know what we're talking about. We're getting the law wrong now. So I think that's a relatively fair argument. But you said you haven't seen anything like that kind of argument before where a defense attorney is concerned that in the eyes of the jury, they're going to look like

they're incompetent or something? So there's two different ways to look at that. I've never seen the argument where if there was a misstatement of law to strike the whole jury panel, generally we don't talk during during jury voir dire is it's not as frequent as you would think that we talk about the actual law what you need to find because there's a lot of objections from the state usually you have to stay away from fact specific on your case so it's a very fine line that you walk when you say you have to find him guilty of xyz you have to find him this and if you start getting into the facts of the case that's always an objection because you can't be fact specific you have to use a lot of analogies and things like that to see where a jury's mind is. I've certainly seen

where you move to strike a whole jury panel for something that happened during that voir dire. I haven't seen it where there was a misstatement of law and that's the reason why it was you were moving to strike it. So certainly it's not unusual to strike a whole jury panel for different reasons. I mean, there is a local attorney who's absolutely great and he's a good friend of mine, who struck a whole jury panel because all of their last name started with the letter C. And they said, it's impossible that this is just a random thing that every single juror is, she or he, their last name begins with C. It was a federal case. And the judge actually struck the whole panel. He thought it was unusual as well. I'm not sure I understand that one.

What's the problem? You don't even know their, you don't even know their identities, the jurors. I think that he was basically saying this wasn't a random selection of jurors. Oh, I see. And that it is, there was something strange going on. He doesn't know what it is, but he'd rather have a jury panel that wasn't, you know, everyone's last name started to a C. And the judge, you know, bought that argument. And actually, it's a pretty well-renowned case. It turns out they're all family members.

And then we found out of that. Right. No, no. Let me ask you about what the judge did here. Were you surprised that the judge just, you know, got rid of the whole jury panel, basically sided with the defense? Why do you think he did that? I think that the judge doesn't want this to come back an appeal.

So he's going over and above of what you normally see because he knows if this is not guilty, the state can't appeal it, right? There's no appeal from the state. It would only be if this is a guilty, it would be an appeal from the defense. So a lot of judges go over and above for a defendant to make sure that they eliminate all appellate, possible appellate issues. What do you think about the state's argument that they're concerned every time they raise an objection and maybe they make the defense look bad in a way that it's going to be grounds for a, you know, a slate of jurors to be just excused? Do you think that their frustrations are, you know, legitimate, justified?

I think it's an interesting motion, but again, you can't limit what the defense can object to because if you're limiting, if you're saying to the judge, hey, judge, by the way, I don't want this happening every time. he has no control over it. The defense is going to raise objections on whatever they want to raise objections on. I think it's an interesting motion. I think it's more for the press than it is that the judge is actually going to say, hey, you know, you guys are right.

I'm not going to allow them to do this because that would never happen. I think it's more to show the press why it happened and kind of put some dirt on the defense and say like, oh, they didn't know the law. There was another part of this that I thought was really interesting. And I guess you could understand why the state is frustrated because they have also said in this filing that three jurors have complained about improper conduct. Like, for example, there was a juror number three who said that people were approaching the jurors or were talking

in their presence. And this juror, juror number three, actually said that when she was outside the courthouse, someone came up to her to discuss her jury service on, quote, the Rapper's case. And despite all of that, the state didn't move to strike the jury panel. And that seems pretty serious what's been happening with the jury, according to the state. And yet here, the jury panel was completely excused because of the defense was concerned that they might look bad. So if that is all true from what the state says, what do you make of it? I think it's highly unusual.

In cases where it's a high profile case, and I've had a lot of high profile cases, I had a lot of high profile trials, when you have a high profile trial, people want to approach you just normal people that are that are watching the case that have interest in the case i mean the people that watch your show that listen to your show i mean these people have a lot of interest in what's going on and not only that they have a lot of interest in the in the evidence sometimes they know the evidence better than some of the lawyers sometimes they know the law better than some of the lawyers i mean it's really the the era of people getting involved in these cases from when it was O.J. Simpson and everyone was kind of just watching on

TV to where it is now, where everyone is kind of their own detective or their own lawyer and kind of figuring things out, I think has grown so much and so substantially that it doesn't surprise me that random people are coming up to jurors and trying to get them to talk to them. But it is, like I said, it's improper. It's not allowed. A juror is not allowed to discuss their service and I know there was some issues where one juror was saying oh Mellie's mom is looking at me weird you know things like that I think are are very minimal because family members are going to be upset when they're their family members on trial so those things will happen and people will be looking at you because you're a juror and they want to see if you give any reaction if you

smile if you don't smile you know those things everyone's going to be looking at but if there's no physical contact that there's no talking to each other very difficult other than that to say okay we need to strike the panel i do find it like i said troubling that people are coming up to these jurors and wanting to talk to them but you know that happens a lot in high profile cases and look you know like you said the the prosecution this is a second round for them they uh they they want a conviction they don't want another mistrial so they're trying to you know make sure everything is going accordingly uh but look it's tough at the time of this recording we're still in the jury selection process we'll see when they actually select a jury.

And then we'll see, you know, hopefully during the course of the trial that we don't lose jurors because of these kinds of issues. Having said that, you mentioned something, and I have a bonus issue for you, you mentioned detective. So I wanted to also ask you your thoughts on this other issue. The judge, in this case, ordered that the lead detective, Mark Moretti, is going to be, is going to have to be interviewed by Mellie's defense team again. Usually in Florida, you know that witnesses can only be deposed once unless the judge

decides otherwise or the parties agree. So here, the defense is going to ask Moretti about his credibility, not any evidence about the actual case, but it concerns whether Moretti solicited a sheriff's deputy to lie, namely telling him that he should say he was there when a search warrant was executed on Mellie's mom's phone. The defense suggested this could actually be Brady material, meaning evidence that the state has to turn over that may help the defense's case. Remember, Mellie's team already accused the former prosecutor, who's no longer. on the case Christine Bradley of a Brady violation.

So this idea, first, that he's going to have to sit and talk about, did he kind of persuade a sheriff's deputy to lie and say he was there during the execution of this search warrant? That's a big allegation. I'm curious what you think Moretti's going to say. You know, I'd always like to say that police officers always tell the truth, but I've had instances where they where they don't i mean you know for better or for worse police officers doctors lawyers everybody is a person right so everybody does things that are right does things that are wrong

you know gets nervous just like everybody else gets nervous so i've had dealings with detective more than the past um not good ones and you know it doesn't surprise me when i heard what was going on uh and i do think that they're entitled to take his deposition again because I think that all the quagmire of who's telling the truth, who's not telling the truth. And don't forget, you know, for your audience, a Brady is exculpatory evidence, evidence that may tend to say, hey, this guy didn't do it, or it may be something to someone's credibility for telling the truth. That also is Brady evidence. That's why they're saying this is Brady evidence. Now, in the past, three Brady notices on Detective Moretti were filed. One

saying one thing, then one correcting what the first one said. And then the last one saying, no, no, no, the first one was right. So there's so much going on. And I just think that I'm going to be watching and listening very closely because I think that this is the tip of the iceberg for Detective Moretti in terms of what he's going to say at this deposition, because I think there's going to be some complaints filed. I think that there's going to be a bigger issue that comes about. And if you recall and this was some inside baseball and I talked about it on your show once before at the very beginning of this case when I represented Mellie and I also represented Bortland uh everyone knew I was representing them everyone knew they had attorneys and everyone knew that they were invoking

their Fifth Amendment knowing all that Portland got arrested in Texas and he was getting waiting to be extradited to Florida and detectives including Moretti flew over to Texas try to get him to give a statement, even knowing that he was represented by counsel. So, you know, when someone does something like that, it doesn't surprise me when I hear other allegations. So I'd like to see what's going to happen. You know, listen, this is all fair game when he's on the stand. The state may not want to even call him. And then he'll be a defense witness. They'll call him to the stand. They'll ask him what he did. And then they'll attack his credibility. Yeah. And I don't know if it'll be through, you know, a deposition, an interview. We don't

know exactly what he said, what the deputy said. You mentioned the prosecution. They said this shouldn't even be admissible at trial. It can't be used to impeach his credibility because they say demons didn't reach out to his mom. He didn't ask her to do anything. So this whole issue about the execution of the search warrant on the phone doesn't even matter. And I'll give you a quick response to that. What do you think?

Yeah, I think it does. I mean, anything that a detective does in a case that is going to be relevant in terms of his credibility is always going to be relevant in a case. So if he's serving a warrant on Bob Smith and Bob Smith doesn't have anything to do with my case or he's tangentially has something to do with my case and he lies about something in that service of the warrant, I think would be relevant to his credibility because he served warrants in my case and he's served warrants on my family and he's done investigation and looked for things and said he found things. All these different things would go. I mean, like I said, I don't like to keep bringing up O.J. Simpson's case.

No, no, yeah. But, you know, the fact is, is that in O.J. Simpson's case, you had Mark Furman, who, you know, says, I never used this certain word. Well, how would that even be relevant? You know, if you think about it, like, how would that be relevant in the case? It's relevant because he made it relevant. I never used that word before. And then all of a sudden, holy cow, well, here, let me play a tape for you. And the rest is all history, right? So, So I think that things that affect your credibility are always relevant in a trial and no one can sway me from that opinion. I agree with you.

I mean, how many times than any of our followers will know when we have like experts on the stand, they, under cross-examination, their past review, their past reports and other cases are brought in to suggest are they biased? I remember one expert who always seemed to find in every death penalty case that there was some sort of mental defect in the in the in the defendant in the killer like everyone and always said that and they looked at his past cases and said have you ever found one where you didn't find it and so it looked like it was a hired gun and so it's an interesting kind of debate and interesting argument bradford cohen thank you so much sir for coming on to talk about the latest

i'm sure this is not going to be the last time we have you on because there's going to be a lot to happen in this case all right sir thank you so much thank you all right everybody that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. Spotify.