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BOND SET FOR C MURDER: Rapper minutes away from tasting freedom after murder conviction overturned.
*"It’s been a long road but the truth finally came out,” begins C-Murder in a statement Thursday accompanying his impending release from prison.
The rapper, born Corey Miller, was awaiting release from the Concordia Parish Jail in Ferriday, Louisiana early Thursday (March 16) after State District Judge Martha Sassone set bail at $500,000. On March 10, the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned his murder conviction and ordered a new trial. Prosecutors must now decide if they want to retry Miller for the shooting death of 16-year-old Steven Thomas.
“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," Miller said in the statement released by his reps.
Thomas was shot in the chest after an argument inside of the Platinum Club in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana in January 2002. Miller was convicted of second-degree murder in Sept. 2003 and sentenced to a mandatory life sentence.
The following year, he appealed the case after learning prosecutors had removed the criminal records of some witnesses and withheld evidence. As a result, Sassone ordered a new trial, which prosecutors later appealed. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeal struck down Sassone's order and upheld Miller's second-degree murder conviction. Miller appealed that ruling in Feb. 2006 and got his conviction overturned earlier this month.
During a hearing on Wednesday, prosecutor Roger Jordan argued unsuccessfully against setting bail for the rapper, telling Judge Sassone: "I still think Mr. Miller is an imminent danger to the community. Witnesses fear this defendant. They were afraid to come to court in the last trial."
Freedom may be a quick mistress for Miller, who faces two counts of attempted second-degree murder in Baton Rouge in a separate case due for trial on May 30. The charges stem from an incident shortly before Miller was charged with killing Thomas, in which he fired a gun at a nightclub owner and security guard, after he was told he would be searched entering a New Orleans nightclub.
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