Judge Overturns Jordan's Conviction in Jam Master Jay Murder

A federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday overturned the murder conviction of Karl Jordan Jr., one of two men found guilty in the 2002 killing of Run-D.M.C. DJ Jam Master Jay, citing insufficient evidence to establish a motive for the crime. The ruling by U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall came nearly two years after a jury convicted Jordan and his codefendant, Ronald Washington, in a trial she presided over.

The decision granted Jordan's motion for acquittal on two federal murder counts related to the shooting death of Jason Mizell, known professionally as Jam Master Jay, on October 30, 2002, inside his recording studio in Queens, New York. An eyewitness at the trial testified to seeing Jordan, Mizell's godson, fire the fatal shots. Prosecutors had argued that Jordan and Washington killed Mizell in retaliation for excluding them from a lucrative cocaine deal in Baltimore two months earlier, portraying the murder as tied to a narcotics conspiracy.

However, Judge DeArcy Hall ruled that the government's evidence on Jordan's motive was speculative and lacked any direct link to the killing. "The record in this case is bereft of such an obvious link, or any link, between the failed...