{"id":7512,"date":"2025-08-25T21:12:58","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/why-is-his-case-taking-so-long\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T21:12:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:12:58","slug":"why-is-his-case-taking-so-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/why-is-his-case-taking-so-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is His Case Taking So Long?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n\tI<\/span>f YNW Melly\u2019s double murder trial starts as scheduled in January 2027, it will kick off just under eight<\/em> years<\/em> after the rapper was first arrested on murder charges, accused of killing two of his childhood friends. Throughout the entire process, the once-rising rapper has sat in jail.<\/p>\n

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\n\tIn the land of presumed-innocent-until-proven-guilty, how does that happen? According to legal experts, it\u2019s partly due to the case\u2019s unique factors, including a mistrial, a death penalty appeal and delays requested by his own lawyers. But they say it\u2019s also less unusual than you might think.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile the \u2026 circumstances may be unique, an eight-year pretrial detention reveals a standard feature of our system,\u201d says Kellen R. Funk<\/strong>, a professor at Columbia Law who has written extensively about bail and pre-trial detention. \u201cDespite our paper commitments to the presumption of innocence and speedy, neutral trials, our system tolerates a great deal of punishment before trial and without trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMelly (Jamell Demons<\/strong>) rose to fame in the late 2010s with gritty trap hits like \u201cMurder on My Mind,\u201d which reached No. 14 on the Hot 100 and spent 20 weeks on the chart. His debut mixtape I Am You<\/em>, released in early 2019 by Warner Music Group\u2019s 300 Entertainment, ultimately spent 55 weeks on the album chart.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in February 2019, he was arrested in Broward County, Fla., on first-degree murder charges over shocking accusations: That he and another rapper, Cortlen \u201cYNW Bortlen\u201d Henry<\/strong>, had shot and killed Anthony \u201cYNW Sakchaser\u201d Williams<\/strong> and Christopher \u201cYNW Juvy\u201d Thomas, Jr.<\/strong>, two of Melly\u2019s closest companions.<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors say Demons and Henry carried out the killings inside a car after an Oct. 26 recording studio session in Ft. Lauderdale. They then allegedly staged a drive-by shooting to make it look like the pair of friends had been murdered by others, including driving around with the bodies, before Henry took them to an emergency room. Melly has long maintained his innocence and has pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince he was arrested, the rapper has been incarcerated without pre-trial release \u2014 a typical outcome in many states when a defendant is accused of pre-meditated murder. His lawyers have sought to have him released several times, including initially in May 2019; again in April 2020 on the grounds that he was sick with COVID-19; again in 2023 after a mistrial; and again this May \u2014 each time without success.<\/p>\n

\n\tRegardless of whether a defendant is held in jail or released on bail, the U.S. Constitution\u2019s Sixth Amendment guarantees all Americans the right \u201cto a speedy and public trial.\u201d Under Florida law, that means an accused felony defendant must be brought to trial within 175 days.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the devil, as always, is in the details. Judges typically have wide powers to push back that deadline, including for appeals, procedural delays and the unveiling of new charges. A defendant\u2019s attorneys can also waive the speedy trial right if they need more time to prepare for trial, or judges can sometimes simply deem it waived through their actions. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile there are rules here, most rely on the discretion of the judge,\u201d says Funk, the Columbia professor. \u201cA lot turns on how much the judge wants to push the government to move forward, and judges who see defendants engaging in or tolerating delay are generally reluctant to push the government to move faster than even the defendant seems to want.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tSince the beginning, Melly\u2019s case has faced many, many such delays. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, courthouses around the country were shut down \u2014 and in-person jury trials didn\u2019t start back up again in Broward County until April 2021<\/a>. A trial was later set to go in 2022, but then the case became bogged down in a long-running appeal over whether Melly could face the death penalty. (Florida appellate courts eventually ruled that he could.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn June 2023, more than four years after he was first charged, the trial finally kicked off in a Broward County courtroom. Prosecutors told the jury that the rapper had essentially confessed to the killing, citing texts to another rapper in which he wrote \u201cI did that\u201d and\u00a0\u201cShhh.\u201d They also pointed to cell phone locations and evidence that gunshots came from within the car.<\/p>\n

\n\tDefense attorneys countered that the state lacked a murder weapon and had failed to provide a motive<\/a> for the killings. \u201cAfter four years of investigation, the state comes and says, \u2018Hey, he killed two of his best friends,\u2019\u201d Melly\u2019s attorney said. \u201cAnd you\u2019re wondering why, and their answer is, \u2018Uh, I dunno.\u2019 That\u2019s the first indication that they\u2019re just guessing and don\u2019t know what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut after six weeks of testimony and three days of deliberation, the jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict. On two occasions, the judge asked the jurors to keep deliberating after they said they were deadlocked, but he eventually ordered a mistrial when they failed a third time.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the mistrial, prosecutors confirmed that they would proceed with a retrial, which was quickly scheduled for just a few months later in October 2023. But that new trial date has been repeatedly postponed ever since.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy can\u2019t Melly just invoke his speedy trial right? He has, on numerous occasions, according to court records \u2014 including a hand-written filing from jail in January 2022 and then a filing by his lawyers in May 2022. But he\u2019s also sometimes withdrawn such requests, and in December 2023 he formally waived <\/a>h<\/a>i<\/a>s<\/a> <\/a>speedy trial right<\/a> as a retrial loomed because his lawyers needed more time to prepare.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis past February, Judge Martin S. Fein<\/strong> expressed frustration<\/a> at the prospect of another delay over scheduling issues on the prosecution side. \u201cMr. Demons has now been in custody for 2,202 days,\u201d the judge said. \u201cIf one state attorney is not available, maybe one of the other two assigned to this case can stand in, and if all three are not available, maybe one of the 150 state attorneys upstairs might sit in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe latest delay began earlier this summer. With a trial date scheduled for September, both sides were still pursuing appeals over what evidence would be admitted at the trial, so they asked Judge Fein to push back the date. When he refused to do so, both sides asked Florida\u2019s Fourth District Court of Appeal to force him to.<\/p>\n

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\n\tThe appeals court granted that motion last month, prompting Judge Fein to postpone the trial yet again \u2014 this time until January 2027. Though Melly\u2019s attorneys had asked for a delay to accommodate their portion of the ongoing appeal, they told Billboard<\/em> at the time that they didn\u2019t need or want it to be pushed back by 17 months.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMr. Demons is ready for trial,\u201d said his attorney Raven Liberty<\/strong>, \u201cand we do not expect he will need to wait until 2027 to secure his freedom.\u201d She said that she would file a formal speedy trial request as soon as the appeals court rules on the case; under Florida law, that starts a new 60-day timer for a trial.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery American should be concerned about this abuse of the justice system and basic Constitutional rights,\u201d Liberty said. \u201cWhile we expect Broward prosecutors to continue procedural tactics to delay a trial, my client is still guaranteed a speedy trial once jurisdiction is relinquished back to the trial court by the appeals court.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter so many years of waiting, whether that results in an actual trial, and an actual verdict, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Constitution guarantees a right to a speedy trial, but courts have often found that years of incarceration do not violate this right,\u201d says Funk, the Columbia professor. \u201cLoopholes and exceptions \u2026 are so numerous and broad that the speedy trial right is effectively a dead letter in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If YNW Melly\u2019s double murder trial starts as scheduled in January 2027, it will kick off just under eight years after the rapper was first arrested on murder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[294,947],"class_list":["post-7512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-case","tag-long"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}