Appellate Court Seek To Reinvestigate Tory Lanez Case After Accepting Appeal

Tory Lanez‘s career was not looking good. The rapper was sentenced to a decade in prison for the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion, and is currently being held at California Correctional Institution. He had tried to keep his musical output going with the Prison Tapes series, but even those were cut short. Lanez seemed doomed to fade into irrelevance behind bars, but a major development surfaced on October 25. An L.A. Appellate Court has accepted Tory Lanez’s innocence claim, which means Lanez’s case could be reinvestigated.

DJ Akademiks obtained court documents confirming the accepted appeal. The acceptance means that the District Attorney will have two weeks to respond. If given the opportunity, however, investigators will take a second look at Lanez’s conviction. In particular, there will be an investigation into the allegation that the rapper was unfairly prosecuted. This has the potential to be life-changing for Lanez. The rapper was found guilty of first-degree assault with a firearm. He was also found guilty of discharge of a firearm with gross negligence. He will not be eligible for parole until September 2029.

This is the first big development in the Tory Lanez case since July. The rapper’s former driver, Jauquan Smith, submitted an affidavit in which he claimed he didn’t actually see Lanez shot Megan Thee Stallion. The defense council claimed that Smith was not allowed to testify during Lanez’s trial. They also felt the affidavit was reason enough to launch another trial. The California prosecutors contested this request, however. Michael C. Keller, the Deputy Attorney General, posited that Smith’s testimony would not have significantly changed the outcome of the trial.

“Defense counsel conceded that Smith would not have been a helpful witness,” Keller noted. “Because of his bias and the cumulative nature of his proffered testimony.” Tory Lanez has maintained that he is innocent, despite his conviction. Shortly before his decade-long sentence began, the rapper told fans that he was “wrongfully convicted.” He also refused to apologize to Megan Thee Stallion. “In no way shape or form was I apologizing for the charges I’m being wrongly convicted of,” he wrote. Time will tell if Lanez’s assertions are vindicated.