The conviction has been upheld for the man who killed Mississippi rapper Lil Lonnie.
On Tuesday, the Mississippi Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision to sentence Antoine Carr to life in prison after he was found guilty in 2022 of the shooting death of Lonnie Taylor, better known by his stage name Lil Lonnie.
Carr argued that during the four-day trial that resulted in his guilty verdict, the state committed prosecutorial misconduct by attempting to improperly “steer the jury towards and away from certain evidentiary items by appealing to their sense of intelligence.” Basically, he claimed prosecutors asked the jury to return a guilty verdict based on popular belief and not evidence.
“After our review, we find that the prosecutor did not make any statements or arguments during closing arguments that were ‘so inflammatory that the trial court should have intervened on its own,’” a portion of the unanimous decision reads. “We therefore find no reversible error, and we affirm Antoine’s conviction and sentence.”
On April 19, 2018, Lil Lonnie was in his vehicle when he was shot several times and killed in his hometown of Jackson. The vehicle proceeded to crash into a home on Montebello Drive. Lil Lonnie was just 22 years old when he was killed. Prior to his death, he had become a rising rapper through his project, They Know What’s Goin’ On, which dropped in 2015. He released TKWGO 2 in 2016 and TKWGO 3 in 2017. His biggest hits were “Colors” and “Change Up.”
Two other people were convicted in connection to Lil Lonnie’s death. Monya Davis is currently serving life in prison at the East Mississippi Correctional Facility while Marshun Carr received 18 years and is serving at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.
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