YNW Melly Trial: Legal Analysis of Jury Selection and Evidence

[00:00:00][Music] hi this is bruce rivers welcome to another episode of criminal lawyer reacts i'm bruce rivers and first of all i want to thank everybody for uh all the great messages of support and for watching our channel and can't thank you enough and we're here to inform entertain a little bit and uh basically give you kind of an updated version today about the y w melee case now mr demons you can't have a better name for a defender than demons is on trial for the murder of two of his ymw crew members that would be christopher thomas and anthony williams now the the allegation is that uh there's a dispute over like two hundred thousand dollars and um there's a lot of talk chit chat uh about what this case was really about and it would happen when um they drove uh portland and melly drove our demons uh drove these two young guys they're part of their crew to a deserted area and it's alleged that that's where they were shot and then portland drove the bodies to the er okay their trial started last week on april 4th i believe and they started the jury selection process so let's talk a little bit about what jury selection is so in any kind of criminal case um there's a process called voidir v-o-i-r-d-i-r-e void here and vadir is is a process where the first potential jurors are asked very intrusive questions to see if they can be fair now this is a florida death penalty case so it's a little bit different than most other cases there's a thing called preemptory challenges and challenges for cause so you get 10 preemptory challenges as a defense which means that you can kick anybody off the jury for any reason or no reason as long as it's race neutral or you can't kick them off for their religion or sexual orientation so it can't be a discriminatory reason for kicking them off so if the prosecutor kicked off all the black people you would have a batson challenge that's what they call when you challenge the rationale for striking a juror but the whole process of jury selection is to try to see if they can be fair you ask questions like um you know do you have any people in law enforcement in your in your background have you been charged with a crime and in this case they'll probably have a questionnaire that they'll fill out and then you get a bunch of information about the jurors before they even get there but this is a death penalty case and a death penalty case is a little bit different in the sense that they also have to be death qualified now there's another death penalty case going on right now in that courthouse there's also another one starting next week and that's the parkland shooter the parkland shooters case uh is also a death penalty case that's going to be starting so you're going to have three death penalty cases which means they need a ton of jurors and that was that parkland shooter nicholas cruz so they're going to need a ton of jurors one of the things about a death penalty case is you have to be you have to say that you know the death penalty is not off the table for you you can't be opposed to that that's penalty and serve on a death penalty type case in kind but in addition that to that you can't only be for the death penalty as well you have to be able to consider prison as an alternative so you can't be one way or the other however if you're predisposed to wanting the death penalty anyway you're almost the government's almost halfway home on something like that so it's gonna take a long time they probably won't start hearing testimony from witnesses in this case until like mid mid may or something like that so um a couple you know i read a couple articles online and uh got some really really good information and also i have some colleagues that are um closely associated with the case so we we uh got some questions that we want to ask so what kind of case is this uh who what kind of evidence is how how is mellie's chances you know what does he need to do to to get an acquittal in this case well part of this is motive okay and the motive in this case is a 200 000 payment from record label and i guess uh one of the one of the guys that was killed um was supposed to receive a 200 000 payment so one of the things that they look at is motive and the motive is that sac chaser was supposed to get a 200 000 payment and there was a call that he made to his mother right before the murders and told her that he wasn't going to get his money that uh that he was really afraid and some other things there's a question as to whether that kind of information is going to come into evidence because it's it's ostensibly hearsay right because it's a statement made out of court and the person's not there to be cross-examined so it's and it's offered to show motive you know what what is and and the truth of what is being asserted so there'll be a question as to whether or not any of those statements made are going to be admissible but here's the other thing there's other evidence uh in this case uh where you have friends that were there you've got a former girlfriend who talked to mellie right after this happened and some instagram stuff let's let's talk about the the ex-girlfriend well they can't seem to find her if you recall there was a motion to compel the deposition by the defense in this case but that seemed to be kind of hollow in the sense that uh these two people uh his ex-girlfriend and the ex-girlfriend's mother were both available and were cooperating with the state until they got a five thousand dollar payment uh from mellie's manager interesting and in court the state said that this was witness tampering and that evidence will likely come in into court because if you put the timing together and one person gets paid and all of a sudden now they're not talking that's a problem that that really goes to the consciousness of guilt in mellie's defense they say well you should see how he lavishes on his new girlfriend you know he it's what he does he pays them money and whatever there's a lot going on in this case there's uh there's dna about 600 pages of dna evidence and that's linked to a jacket that was found in the trunk of the car don't know what the results of those dna because it has been made public but we'll we'll see and and there's also cell phone evidence and the cell phone evidence that the tower logs uh will show that uh mellie was in the area around the time and i think his absence if they have his phone pinged in the time and then uh bortland shows up with the bodies but where miley's know nowhere around his absence is sort of can be inferred as indicia of guilt there's also a lot of forensic evidence there's i think we talked about in one of our prior videos where there's ballistics showing the angle of the shot there's also footwear impressions um you know we have the the round that was filed found in the car there's also um the angle that everything happened at didn't happen the way portland said it did and then you know there's one thing that always wait wait what does that say oh you see this see this it says stop self snitching well there's instagram posts where uh mellie says i did that and then right afterwards says shh s-h-h-h and that happened right after the homicides now i don't have any more context to what was being said but the timing of it will certainly be suspicious and that will come in as a uh statement against interest otherwise an admission of a party opponent and that's what that's what it would be normally out of court statements don't come in unless the person either testifies or or it's an exception to the hearsay rule and a statement of a party opponent in other words anything melee says as long as it's relevant and material to the case comes in as evidence so here's the other issue um you had people that were willing to testify or willing to cooperate but are now hard to find this is one of the things that is going to be really critical for the state's case because first of all the aggravating factor here that leads this to be a capital case is the fact that it was gang-related so they're going to have to have somebody testify about whether or not he is in a gang and they're gonna have to accumulate uh you know either you know tattoos you know he he throws up gang signs in a lot of his videos um and text messages and other testimony from other people saying that he is affiliated with either the blood nation or whatever and so the state will likely have a gang expert to come in and testify that this is such such gang sign this is and he is affiliated with here and this gang and this is how we know that but when it comes to the other parts of the case that require testimony of certain witnesses if they don't show up their their evidence doesn't come into trial and i can can't tell you how many times i've i've gotten up to bad at trial and then they wind up dismissing because people just don't show up now do they need these witnesses to testify in order to prove the actual homicide i don't think so because it'll be a circumstantial forensic case primarily because you've got him at the scene with his cell phone you've got the probably the footwear impressions you know and issues i bet they have the shoes then you've got uh the markings you know in the car where you know the angulation of how everything happened and then you also have uh his own words and you don't need anybody to testify about those because those are his own words and so a law enforcement could say yeah we we got this off of instagram this is his account and this is what he said and it's and it'll be assumed that that he's said it and it's his words but so some of the potential witnesses that are not being able to be found right now one witness who claimed that francois and henry hid the murder weapon after the shooting like hamilton and holmes proved difficult for the prosecutors to reach in recent months in other words you know hiding the murder weapon uh and if somebody said yeah he i helped him hide it or i know that he hit it and if they can't find him that's that that's a nice piece of the case that they would like to have but if they don't have it they don't have it um the other one is who is in the studio with mellie uh just before this happened because he came from the studio that is known and if that person can't be found that doesn't give you the context uh and how this thing arrived because ostensibly if he's about to go kill somebody um or if there was any kind of beef with these guys in the studio that information would be pretty critical to the defense now mellie had uh you know just like in any case you have to disclose who your witnesses are and his witness list has got like what 28 names on it and those 28 names are listed mainly you know a copy of the state's witnesses you know you put everybody that's in the case on the witness list just in case you want to call them because if they're not on your witness list you know like you're not going to be able to call them and then he's got a few of the friends that that help him out a little bit um but the vast majority of the witnesses on his witness list are the miramar police law enforcement agencies and other forensic people this trial will take approximately 12 days for the state at least the state said they would take about 12 days to put their case in and the defense said they would need four or five days to put their case in so that's like what almost uh three weeks of trial testimony but so the the jury selection will take as long or longer than the actual trial so and if mellie is found guilty there will be a second phase the death penalty phase of it and the death penalty phase goes well is scheduled for some time in september and that is a that's a phase where and they have a different witness list for that and they've got like psychologists family members and that's where you kind of uh put on the uh defense that he's a good guy he has more redeeming value he shouldn't end his life you know he deserves life without parole um that kind of thing he should deserve prison rather than death so that is so that's kind of everything in a nutshell um you know one of the things that that they didn't do is uh assert any kind of mental health defense or insanity plea and that tells you something that's instructive because if they were to do that he'd sort of almost have to concede that he took part in the murder right otherwise how is how is it relevant for any kind of mental health defense and so they're sticking with their uh their absolute uh defense of self-defense or not self-defense but that um that he didn't do it it's the not guilty i didn't do it it's and and we'll have to see what happens um if some of these witnesses don't show up they can't use their testimony because it's hearsay if they show up and change their story that can be a problem for either side if they are being bribed not to show up that's evidence will certainly come into play so it's a very very drawn out process there's a lot of evidence to sift through and there's a lot of witnesses a lot of procedure to go through that's really boring um but it's really important you know the process of jury selection is really one of uh how do i want to put it it's kind of it's kind of a feel you know it's kind of a guesswork in a sense if you've done it long enough you know it's jurors that you it's really jury selection is really a misnomer because it's really jury deselection you don't get to decide who's on the jury you can decide who you're going to kick off and so it's like for example if i get a lawyer that's on my jury i've been [ __ ] by lawyers twice on a jury i will never have another lawyer on a jury unless it really makes sense but uh you know or teachers or somebody or somebody has a as a victim of a crime and then the crime is similar to the one that you're trying you probably don't want that person on your jury so it's it's really an art and uh and so they're they the defense has got their hands full selecting a jury number one that this is a very high profile case and so finding somebody that hasn't heard about it is going to be a tall order and finding somebody that uh that you know isn't a total right wing that please you know that's not racist and that not all people deserve the death penalty that's gonna be a big uh and finding people are just gonna have an open mind so let's answer the question what would mellie's team have to do to get him off um number one let's talk about whether or not he would testify if mellie would testify he and he hasn't said [ __ ] right now that i know of so if he hasn't said anything then the first time he tells his story is on the stand and ostensibly after all the evidence is in so he could tailor whatever story he tries to tell consistent with innocence and he may be able to put some things in context you know like the uh i did that or whatever and if any and if he had somebody to explain that that uh that instagram message that i did that you know instead of just because it sounds terrible you know i did that but you know that what is that so if you had somebody come and explain that and if he had any kind of alibi which i don't see any notice of alibi in here at all but having people either not show up or put the blame on portland saying he's the one that did it or i don't know how else to you know there's a number of ways you can poke holes in in either dna or in some of the forensics hopefully they would have their own forensic expert to contradict what the state says and if they do and come up with different conclusions and and if this is and if it's truly a circumstantial case and one that relies on forensics and you've got battle of the experts that could be one way that he winds up winning this case so given everything that we know about the case all the forensics the different people that are going to testify some people that aren't going to testify the inculpatory statements that he makes on instagram and i don't see that his his video is going to come in necessarily uh murder around my mind um be interesting if it did though but given everything that we know i think there's a lot of evidence against him and given the actions while this is pending by his own manager to pay certain people who are actual witnesses in this case i think it's quite possible he could get convicted in this case i and i think i've said that before and it's not my desire to see him it's just my best guess and you know and i'm not trying to taint any jury pool or anything i don't think we have that kind of reach uh but it is important to keep an open mind and let's see where the case goes so this is just your this is your mellie update and i i think we've been pretty thorough and i hope you follow it along with me and as uh as the trial progresses you know i will give you more we'll give you another update in a month and uh and we're gonna follow it very closely and we'll see you next time here on criminal lawyer reacts i'm bruce rivers board certified criminal defense lawyer so make sure you follow us on instagram follow us on twitter sign up for patreon spread the word and we'll see you next time here on criminal lawyer reacts