California Appeals Court Upholds Tory Lanez Conviction

A California appeals court on Wednesday denied rapper Tory Lanez's challenge to his conviction for shooting Megan Thee Stallion, upholding the 2022 guilty verdict and 10-year prison sentence stemming from the 2020 incident.

The three-judge panel of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal issued a 46-page opinion affirming Daystar Peterson's convictions on three felony counts: assault with a semiautomatic firearm, discharging a firearm with gross negligence, and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. The ruling rejected Lanez's claims of trial errors, including the admission of an Instagram post from his account denying that Kelsey Harris, a friend present at the scene, had fired the gun, and the playback of Harris's recorded interview with authorities, in which she implicated Lanez as the shooter. The judges described Harris's trial testimony as evasive, with repeated claims of memory lapses, justifying the use of her prior statements as inconsistent evidence. They also dismissed arguments that the trial court chilled Lanez's right to testify or introduced racial bias through references to his tattoos, finding no prejudicial impact.