Megan Thee Stallion’s lawyer Alex Spiro denied allegations about the gun used to shoot her going missing. Spiro insisted the weapon was still in the Los Angeles Police Department’s possession after Tory Lanez claimed it was no longer available for DNA testing.
Spiro told legal reporter Meghann Cuniff the gun was “there and available.” Lanez’s lawyers said his 10-year prison sentence should be vacated because the firearm went missing, preventing him from conducting further testing in an October filing.
“As the firearm is unavailable, this further testing is impossible,” Lanez’s legal team ontended. “By failing to preserve the material and exculpatory evidence, the People have infringed on the Petitioner’s right under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to seek redress of Petitioner’s grievances through the judicial process. The Petitioner is entitled to challenge the legality of his confinement under the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause because of the People’s failure to preserve and present exculpatory evidence at trial and make available to the Petitioner post-trial.”
Lanez was convicted of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, having a loaded unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence in 2022. A judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison in 2023.
The Canadian rapper/singer, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, thought DNA evidence could help his case. He sought to blame the 2020 shooting of Megan Thee Stallion on her former friend Kelsey Harris.
“It is more than an abstract possibility that the jury could have been swayed by positive DNA test results showing Ms. Harris’s DNA contributed to one of the four profiles recovered from the magazine and firearm,” Lanez’s attorneys argued. “If the people had made such evidence available to the jury or the defense, it is reasonable to conclude that a rational trier of fact would have found the requisite reasonable doubt as to whether Mr. Peterson had fired the weapon. When looking at the sum total of the circumstances of Petitioner Peterson’s trial, it is clear that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.”
An appellate court confirmed it will consider Lanez’s appeal. The California Attorney General’s Office was ordered to respond to his petition by November 20.
