YNW Melly, who has been behind bars in Broward County since 2019, is taking legal action against the Broward Sheriff’s Office. He is seeking to get released from jail immediately, claiming that his constitutional rights have been severely violated.
The lawsuit was submitted by attorney Michael Pizzi on Saturday in a federal court in Miami. In the filing it’s being alleged that the rapper has been subjected to complete isolation, leaving him unable to communicate with anyone outside. Furthermore, it states that he has been denied access to his legal counsel on multiple occasions. According to the allegations in the document, the circumstances Melly is enduring “shock the conscience and could not even be imagined … even in a third-world country that has no guard rails protecting human decency and dignity.”
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“It is utterly disgraceful that in this day and age, a young Black male has been placed in debilitating isolation and deprived of seeing his own mother for years,” Pizzi said to the Miami Herald.
If your not familiar, Jamell Demons, also known as YNW Melly, is facing charges for the alleged murder of his childhood friends YNW Juvy and YNW Sakchaser in 2018, which was made to appear as a drive-by shooting after a studio session.
Judge Martin Fein scheduled a new trial date for September 10, 2025, and set a pretrial meeting for December 5, 2024, regarding a separate tampering case. With the retrial not being scheduled until next year, many fans on social media are sharing their opinions on the date being pushed so far out.
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Melly’s initial double murder trial resulted in a mistrial last summer. A judge’s decision in January to exclude a promotional video about Melly’s life as evidence led prosecutors to appeal, causing further delays in the case. Melly appeared at a recent hearing in late April at the request of his attorneys to address pending motions in the case, seeking to move forward with discovery, including deposition proceedings.
Prosecutors objected to holding the hearing, pointing out that the appeals court had issued a stay in the proceedings. Judge John J. Murphy III had ruled in January that a 20-minute documentary showcasing Melly’s life and success, filmed just before the double murder, should not be shown to the jury. The video includes scenes of Melly with a weapon and briefly mentions the deaths of Thomas and Williams. The defense argued that the video constitutes hearsay, while the state maintained that it indicates Melly’s presence at the crime scene. The state contended that the automatic stay resulted from the appeal of an order suppressing evidence.