Rapper Shockingly Asks Judge For Death Sentence & Rejects Further Plea To Spare Him

Tampa rapper Ace NH asked a judge to sentence him to death and said he did not want his lawyers to make another plea to spare his life at his next hearing, even after his family testified on his behalf.

The rapper, whose legal name is Billy Adams III, made his plea in a handwritten letter shown in a new FOX 13 report. He wanted Judge Mark Wolfe to sentence him to death, as jurors had urged, for killing his girlfriend Alana Sims’ unborn child.

Judge Wolfe, not the jury, has the final say on the sentence. FOX 13 reported that it was unclear whether he would let Ace NH give up the chance to offer more evidence in his favor.

“I don’t want my lawyers to present any mitigation or arguments at this hearing,” Ace NH wrote.

The letter carried an October 12 filing stamp and referred to a hearing set for December 1. At that hearing, both sides can offer final evidence before the judge decides the sentence. Mitigation is the defense’s case for a lesser punishment, which can include testimony about the defendant’s background and family.

Ace NH wrote that his lawyers had explained what giving up that opportunity would mean. He said the choice was his and asked them to respect it.

“I don’t have an issue with the death penalty,” he wrote.

The jury split on how he should be punished. After finding him guilty on September 1, jurors called for life without parole for Sims’ murder. They voted 8-4 for death on the separate charge of killing her unborn child by injury to the mother.

During the penalty phase, his stepmother and two younger brothers told jurors about their bonds with him.

The defense urged jurors to choose life without parole rather than death. Those earlier efforts still mattered: FOX 13 reported that Judge Wolfe would have to consider the evidence already presented to spare his life.

Sims was 22 and five months pregnant when she was shot in New Tampa on January 30, 2023. Her young son was found unharmed in her car near the shooting scene.

Prosecutors argued that Ace NH lured Sims there because he wanted to continue a relationship with another woman. They said he believed he was the unborn child’s father, though he later turned out not to be. His lawyers denied he thought the child was his. They argued that the state had not proved he killed Sims because she was pregnant.

The shooting came three days after his acquittal in a separate double-murder case. In that trial, Ace NH testified that he shot two men at a recording studio in self-defense. Police arrested him in Sims’ case on February 8, 2023.

His next hearing is scheduled for December 1.