Tay-K Catches Break In Murder Appeal Over Phone Evidence

This post was originally published on this site.

Tay-K just caught a major break in his murder appeal when a Texas court ordered the trial judge to explain why iPhone evidence wasn’t thrown out.

The rapper’s legal team has been fighting hard to overturn his 80-year sentence for the 2017 killing of photographer Mark Anthony Saldivar during a robbery in San Antonio, and this temporary pause gives them real momentum heading into the next phase.

Here’s what’s happening: cops found an iPhone inside a car they believed was connected to the murder, and they searched it without getting a warrant first.

Tay-K’s attorneys immediately tried to suppress all the evidence pulled from that device, arguing police didn’t have probable cause to dig through it.

The original trial judge disagreed and let the evidence in anyway, which became a major problem for the defense.

Now the Fourth Court of Appeals in Texas is saying hold up, and they’re giving the trial court exactly ten days to write out their reasoning and legal conclusions supporting that decision.

The appeal process restarts after the judge submits that explanation, and Tay-K’s lawyers will get a deadline for their next brief.

This is huge because it keeps the case moving and forces the court to justify a decision that could’ve buried him.

The rapper’s also got another problem though: his defense is questioning the credibility of Joana Reyes, an alleged accomplice who testified that Tay-K fired the shot that killed Saldivar.

His attorneys claim prosecutors straight up misrepresented Reyes’ criminal history to the jury, giving them a totally false impression of how reliable her testimony actually was.

The stakes are real here.

Tay-K’s already serving a separate 55-year sentence from a 2016 home invasion, and his projected release date is August 8, 2099, which basically means he’s looking at spending his entire life locked up.