"Its been a long road but the truth finally came out. I can’t wait to go home, see my people and be up in the studio to finish up my album and focus on my label", C-Murder said in a statement released through his managers Barbara Pescosolido and Lupe Ceballos.
Miller was convicted of second-degree murder in the shooting death of 16-year-old Steven Thomas. Thomas was shot in the chest after an argument inside of the Platinum Club in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana in January 2002.
The rapper was convicted in Sept. of 2003 and sentenced to a mandatory life sentence. He appealed the case in 2004, after discovering prosecutors had expunged the criminal records of some of their witnesses and withheld evidence from Miller’s defense team.
In 2004, the original trial judge, Judge Martha Sassone ordered a new trial for Miller in light of the new evidence. Prosecutors appealed Sassone’s ruling and in March of 2005, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal struck down Sassone’s ruling and upheld Miller’s second-degree murder conviction. Miller appealed the ruling in Feb. 2006 and on Mar. 10, the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned Miller’s murder conviction and ordered a new trial. It is now up to prosecutors to decide if they want to take Miller to trial again.
The rapper’s bond was set at $500,000 yesterday (Mar. 15), despite a prosecutor’s protest that Miller is a "danger to the community." Miller was originally held on $2 million bond in 2002, but it was revoked, after it was learned that Miller bribed two Jefferson Parish prison officers to smuggle in a cell phone into prison, which prosecutors said Miller used to intimidate potential witnesses. "I still think Mr. Miller is an imminent danger to the community," prosecutor Roger Jordan told Judge Sassone during yesterday’s hearing. "Witnesses fear this defendant. They were afraid to come to court in the last trial."
Once released, Miller could be held in Baton Rouge, where he faces two counts of attempted second-degree murder in a separate case, which is slated to go to trial May 30. The charges stem from an incident shortly before Miller was charged with killing Thomas, in which Miller fired a gun at a nightclub owner and security guard, after he was told he would be searched entering a nightclub in New Orleans.
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