After rapper C-Murder filed an appeal in October, a Louisiana appeals court has upheld his murder conviction and life sentence.

C-Murder, whose real name is Corey Miller, faced a panel yesterday (Dec. 28th) to convince three judges that he did not get a fair trial for allegedly murdering a teenager in 2002. He cited “prejudicial and unsubstantiated testimony that he threated witnesses to the shooting” and blamed prosecutors for eliminating black people from the jury. The 5th Circuit rejected those arguments.

He was originally convicted in 2009 of second-degree murder in the shooting of 16-year-old Steve Thomas at a nightclub.