HINDS COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) – A man who was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Jackson rapper Lil Lonnie appealed his conviction and sentence, which was recently affirmed by the Mississippi Court of Appeals.
Monya Davis was found guilty of killing Lonnie Taylor on April 29, 2018. Davis fatally shot Taylor after he and the other passengers in the same vehicle believed that Taylor had been following them.
About a year later, Davis and Antoine Carr were arrested in Texas and charged with murder. Marshun Carr was also later arrested in Texas in connection to the case. Davis was sentenced to life in prison in 2021.
Shortly after his trial, Davis appealed his conviction and sentence. He argued that his cross-examination of a State’s witness was unconstitutionally limited by the trial judge. The court advised Davis’s counsel to “tailor your questions” to focus only on any investigation into threats against Davis and avoid questions into other investigations that were unrelated to the case. The trial judge said questions concerning search warrants for unrelated criminal activity were not relevant to the case.
On November 29, 2022, the Mississippi Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge didn’t abuse her discretion in Davis’s case.
