Tory Lanez is reportedly demanding a brand new trial after being convicted final yr of capturing Megan Thee Stallion within the foot, calling the responsible verdict a “miscarriage of justice.”
In a movement filed in Los Angeles court docket Wednesday (March 29), Lanez attorneys Jose Baez and Matthew Barhoma argued that Decide David Herriford made quite a few errors through the two-week December trial that resulted in Lanez’s conviction, based on a report by Rolling Stone.
Amongst different arguments, Lanez’s attorneys mentioned the decide mustn’t have allowed jurors to see a key Instagram submit from Lanez, which appeared to severely undermine the rapper’s central protection: that Stallion’s pal and assistant Kelsey Harris would possibly been the one who truly pulled the set off.
“The court docket erred on quite a few questions of legislation in permitting the Individuals to introduce this submit, depriving defendant of a good trial,” Lanez’s attorneys wrote within the movement, based on Rolling Stone’s report. “The one acceptable treatment for this miscarriage of justice is a brand new trial.”
Attorneys for Lanez and a consultant for prosecutors didn’t instantly return a request for remark.
Lanez (actual identify Daystar Peterson) was convicted on Dec. 23 on three felony fees over the hotly disputed July 2020 incident, during which the rapper allegedly shot Stallion within the foot throughout an argument after a pool occasion within the Hollywood Hills.
The capturing occurred within the early-morning hours of July 12, 2020, when Stallion, Lanez, Harris and a driver had been touring in an SUV following a celebration at Kylie Jenner’s home. In response to prosecutors, after an argument broke out, Megan obtained out of the automobile and commenced strolling away, then Lanez shouted, “Dance, bitch!” and commenced capturing at her toes.
Instantly after the incident, Stallion initially instructed law enforcement officials that she had reduce her foot stepping on damaged glass, however days later alleged that she had suffered a gunshot wound. Lanez was charged with the capturing in October 2022.
Throughout the blockbuster trial, Lanez’s attorneys made their greatest effort to sow doubt over who had pulled the set off, portray a situation during which Harris may have been the shooter. However a key protection witness supplied solely complicated eyewitness testimony, and prosecutors pointed to an interview during which Harris pinned the blame squarely on Lanez. Stallion herself supplied highly effective testimony that Lanez had been the one to shoot her; Lanez himself by no means took the witness stand.
At a sentencing at present scheduled for April, Lanez faces as much as 22 years in jail.
In response to Rolling Stone’s report, Wednesday’s submitting additionally cited California’s newly enacted Decriminalizing Inventive Expression Act, a first-in-the-nation statute that goals to limit when prosecutors can cite rap lyrics and different types of artistic expression as prison proof.
Within the case of Lanez, his attorneys say prosecutors ran afoul of the brand new statute by exhibiting jurors a shirtless picture of Lanez that exposed his tattoo of an AK-47 assault rifle, in addition to by threatening to quote violent lyrics if he selected to testify in his personal protection.
They argue that using that proof violated the Decriminalizing Inventive Expression Act as a result of it “painted defendant as a gun-wielding profession prison” and recommended to jurors that he had propensity for crime “based mostly on his ‘gangster’ rapper persona.”
