In a not-shocking development in this now-seven-year-old drama, rapper Corey Miller has been convicted for a second time of the 2002 murder of a fan at a nightclub in Harvey, Louisiana. Miller was originally convicted in September 2003, but a new trial was later granted because prosecutors had allegedly withheld information about some of their witnesses. He was again convicted earlier this week.
As in the first trial, the task of defending Miller against the murder charges was probably not made easier by the fact that the rapper's stage name is "C-Murder."
I wrote about this case a few years ago after I learned that, while awaiting retrial for murder, C-Murder had started using the name "C-Miller." See "Murder to Be Tried for Murder," Lowering the Bar (Mar. 6, 2006). Because I am a genius who sees the future with absolute crystal clarity, I predicted that this would not help his image or his defense very much, and it appears that I was right.
He has been going by "C-Murder" since at least the 1990s, during which he also had two top-ten albums. Later albums were not as successful, possibly because of (or maybe despite) the fact that by the time of his fourth album he had been indicted for two attempted murders and one actual murder. Although criminal records seem to be a plus for certain rappers, the fact that Murder actually murdered one of his fans might have made his other fans less likely to think this was a positive thing.
At least after he was charged with murder, Murder contended that he called himself "C-Murder" only because he had in fact "seen murder." In 2005, C-Murder said that "People hear the name C-Murder and they don't realize that the name simply means that I have seen many murders in my native Calliope projects neighborhood." Well, maybe his publicist actually said that, but presumably he got it from C-Murder. Who was saying this on the occasion of changing his name to "C-Miller," I guess because he had also seen many Millers in his native Calliope projects neighborhood.
Ultimately, C-Miller seems to have agreed that the name change was not going to do much good, based on the fact that he used C-Murder in 2008 on what would appear to be his final studio album, Screamin' 4 Vengeance. He also appeared by that name on Ludacris's Release Therapy album, performing on a song more appropriately entitled "Do Your Time."