Rapper C-Murder, who these days prefers to be known as C Miller, has begun his second trial for the murder of a teenage fan.
Proceedings began with the selection of jurors on Monday. Eleven were chosen from a possible 39, after being quizzed on whether or not media coverage of the case meant they would be unable to assess the two sides impartially.
Miller's lawyer Ron Rakosky argued that they would not, saying that Miller's chance of a fair trial had been "poisoned from the day of his arrest". He told the court: "We're talking about an extraordinary, an extraordinary, amount of coverage. This man will never get a fair trial".
As previously reported, Miller is accused of murdering 16 year old Steve Thomas at the now closed Platinum Club in Harvey, Louisiana in 2002. The teenager was shot through the heart while being beaten by a group of men at a rap concert. The rapper has always maintained his innocence, but was convicted of the crime in 2003. However, the conviction was overturned a year later when Judge Martha Sassone agreed that prosecutors had improperly withheld background information on three eyewitnesses.
A friend of the hip hopper, Juan Flowers recently claimed responsibility for shooting Thomas. The prosecution have said that they fear the sudden confession by Flowers, who is already serving a life sentence for another murder, may be the result of witness tampering.
Miller is already awaiting sentencing for a separate trial, relating to an incident at the Club Raggs bar in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2001. In that case the rapper pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted second degree murder as part of a plea deal. He is due to be sentenced in that case on 25 Aug and, under the terms of his plea deal, faces a sentence of ten years, minus time he has already served in prison and under house arrest.
If convicted of Thomas' murder, Miller faces a mandatory life sentence. Amongst the evidence prosecutors are hoping to submit in the retrial are CCTV footage of the Club Raggs attack and lyrics to his 2002 track 'What's The Reason', which they say includes descriptions of both cases. The defence argue that there is no way of proving when the track was written.
The trial continues.