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C Murder Seeks New Trial!

Almost five years after he was sentenced to life in prison for killing a teenager in a Harvey nightclub, Corey Miller, the rapper known as C Murder, is challenging his conviction.

CelebNMusic247.com has learned via 4UMF.com that Miller says irregularities during the jury’s deliberations deprived him of a fair trial.

Miller, 43, is serving his sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, for second-degree murder in the Jan. 12, 2002, death of Steve Thomas, 16. The Marrero teenager used fake identification to get into the now-closed Platinum Club, where witnesses said he got into a fight with several people. Miller was convicted of stepping into the fracas and fired a bullet into the teenager’s heart.

Miller maintains his innocence. Two Jefferson Parish juries did not believe him and convicted him as charged. The first conviction was overturned. He was convicted a second time in August 2009, by a 10-2 jury vote, the minimum margin allowed in Louisiana law to find someone guilty.

The rappers’s attorney, Rachel Conner, last month filed a post-conviction relief application in the 24th Judicial District Court in Gretna. She raised 10 points to support her assertion that her client did not get a fair trial. Conner said she plans to raise more later.

Primary among the assertions is what she described as irregularities during the jury’s deliberations. One juror decided to cast a guilty vote not based on the evidence but because she wanted to end deliberations to protect another juror, a young woman who refused to convict Miller but was targeted by other jurors to change her mind, Conner wrote.

Miller accuses the trial judge, Hans Liljeberg, of forcing the jury to reach a verdict, after jurors said they could not decide. “The clear message to this jury of laypeople who wrote seven notes (to the judge) and attempted multiple times in open court (to say) that they were unable to proceed, was that the only way to ‘get out of here’ and end the process was to reach a 10-person verdict,” Conner wrote.

One juror, Mary Jacobs, said she did not believe prosecutors proved their case. Nonetheless, she cast the 10th vote that led to Miller’s conviction.

Days after the trial ended, she contacted The Times-Picayune and in an interview told reporters that she changed her vote to guilty to spare the young woman from further grief. Conner uses that news story as evidence to support the argument that Miller did not get a fair trial.

“Mr. Miller’s constitutional rights were violated and there is a reasonable possibility that the jury would have hung, causing a mistrial, but for the belief by juror Jacob that the only way to end the deliberations and protect a younger juror who would not change her vote and was being ‘brutally abused’ by the majority to the point of ‘throwing her guts up’ was to change her own vote from not guilty to guilty,” Conner wrote. “Mr. Miller is entitled to relief on this basis.”

She also accuses Liljeberg of illegally ordering the jury to reach a verdict. Further, she says, Liljeberg erred by not declaring a mistrial, and that he let the jury hear “rank hearsay” from witnesses who reported that they threatened by Miller or his friends. She also asserts that Miller’s trial lawyer was ineffective.

Since the trial, Liljeberg has been elected to the state 5th Circuit Court of Appeal. Judge Steve Enright, who filled Liljeberg’s vacancy at the District Court, must decide whether to grant Miller a hearing. If he does, Conner may present evidence to support her arguments. No timeframe is set for such a ruling.

After an initial round of appeals in state courts, Miller’s conviction became final in February 2013. Post-conviction relief is the next step available to him, and if he fails there, he may ask the federal courts to review his case.

Louisiana law gives convicts two years from when their conviction is final to seek post-conviction relief. However, a federal law gives convicts only a year from when the conviction is final challenge state convictions in federal court.

To preserve Miller’s right to access the federal courts and beat the deadline, Conner last month filed an initial post-conviction application in the state court. She said she will she amend the application later.

Miller, meanwhile, is a defendant in a wrongful death civil lawsuit filed by Thomas’ parents, George and Dolores Thomas. A Jefferson Parish judge last year ruled that Miller is civilly liable for Thomas’ death and also dismissed an insurance company as a defendant. The Thomases’ attorney, Trey Mustian, has appealed the latter decision to have the insurance company brought back into the case.

Should the civil case go to trial, the only question to be addressed is whether Miller should pay damages and, if so, the amount. Miller’s attorney in that case, Roy Maughan Jr., of Baton Rouge, has said the rapper is broke.