A status hearing was held on Tuesday ahead of rapper YNW Melly's double murder retrial.
The rapper, whose real name is Jamell Demons, is accused of murdering two of his childhood friends, Chris “YNW Juvy” Thomas and Anthony “YNW Sakchaser” Williams, in 2018 after a late-night recording session by making it look like a drive-by shooting.
Tuesday's status hearing was held at the request of the defense. Melly was present, but was not seen on Zoom court camera.
Raven Ramona Liberty, Melly's defense attorney, said there were a "plethora of motions" that she had been trying to set hearings for for several months, but was unsuccessful.
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"I made several attempts to schedule the close to, I think, 15-20 motions that are still outstanding. We could not get state to agree with any dates and your office then told us not to contact them unless the state agrees to dates," Liberty told the judge.
The prosecution said they needed a list of all of the motions to ensure all were responded to appropriately. The prosecutor said she was having issues trying to figure out which motion corresponded to which case, and which motions could or could not be heard.
Liberty said she provided a list with dates and the state should not need so much time to respond.
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"I don't think there's any motion that I have filed that date goes past May," she said. "It's October. They've had time to respond."
"I'll give you dates and then whatever motions the defense wants me to hear, just file a notice of hearing... likewise state, if you have anything you want me to hear, you can file a notice of hearing for the same date and time and say this is the motions that you want me to hear," the judge said. "And I'll hear them."
Both parties agreed to a hearing to respond to all the pending motions on Jan. 6 and 7.
Back in July, Judge Martin Fein set a new trial date of September 10, 2025. In terms of the more recent tampering case, he set a pretrial meeting for December 5, 2024.
The first double murder trial against Melly ended in a mistrial last summer.
