YNW Melly has reportedly been denied a mistrial in his double murder case as the high-profile trial goes into its second week.
According to the Sun Sentinel, defense attorneys asked Broward Circuit Judge John Murphy for a mistrial last week after they believed the jury had been tainted following testimony from Felicia Holmes, the mother of Melly’s ex-girlfriend, that couldn’t be verified.
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But the judge denied a mistrial on Tuesday (June 20), telling defense attorneys that jurors could be instructed to ignore statements that were ruled inadmissible.
“The state has ruined my life,” Holmes stated in her testimony on Thursday (June 15), while claiming she’d been “inundated” with threats from the state of Florida about prosecution and eventual imprisonment if she didn’t cooperate.
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This prompted David Howard, one of the Florida native’s attorneys, to declare that there had been a “prejudicial fiasco” in court.
“This jury sat there and watched this fiasco unfold with at least 10, maybe 15 sidebars, after every two questions,” he said, adding that the jury had been “tainted.”
YNW Melly (real name Jamell Demons) was arrested and charged with two counts of premeditated murder in 2019 and faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and he could get the death penalty if convicted.
The mother of one of the victims, Leondra Phillips, recently called out Melly after he was seen smiling and blowing a kiss in court.
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“He did it a couple times — that wasn’t his first time,” she told NBC 6 South Florida. “I walked out. Because, I don’t… what you praying for? You sitting over there like you don’t got no remorse. Like, every time I walk in, you smiling.”
She added: “This ain’t the time for that. This case is sad, this is serious.”
Meanwhile, the rapper’s murder trial has sparked a huge increase in his streaming numbers for June.
According to Bryson “Boom” Paul, who’s been reporting on the trial, the rapper’s Spotify numbers shot up last week as a result of his long-delayed double murder trial beginning on June 12.
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As of Tuesday, Melly had received 794,119 new monthly listeners on Spotify, an 8.2 percent increase in one week to bring his total monthly listeners to 10,468,061.
“Murder on My Mind” remained Melly’s most streamed song with 899,912,860 streams.
