YNW Melly’s legal team is working hard to protect him. As AllHipHop reports, the 22-year-old rapper is currently awaiting trial for first-degree murder, and his lawyers recently filed motions in an effort to remove the death penalty as an option when it comes time for sentencing.
According to the defence, the prosecution “[hasn’t] met the criteria to justify the harsh punishment,” but they argue that Melly “committed murder in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner.”
On Monday, February 7th, the defence filed their opposing motion, arguing that “This aggravating factor is unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, is not capable of a constitutionally adequate narrowing construction and has been applied in an arbitrary and inconsistent manner.”
When giving their notice to seek the death penalty, prosecutors reportedly listed four aggravating factors. Late last year, the defence is said to have “submitted a mitigation package to dispute those factors being proven beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The Just A Matter of Slime hitmaker’s legal team has contended that “the death penalty still wouldn’t be appropriate,” even if the burden of proof happened to be met. A mitigation package was supposed to be sent to a Death Penalty Review Committee to receive a final decision, but as of February 3rd has still not been received.
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AllHipHop notes that the defence has concerns about whether the package will be reviewed in time for trial, which is scheduled to kick off on March 7th. They’ve asked that the court either compel the state to send the package to the committee or drop the death penalty entirely.
As we previously reported, YNW Melly is facing two counts of first-degree murder for the alleged slaying of his friends Anthony Williams and Christopher Thomas in 2018 – read more about that here.
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