Kewon White files appeal in MO3 murder conviction

DALLAS - Kewon White, the man convicted of capital murder in the killing of Dallas rapper MO3, has filed a notice to appeal with the court. 

What we know:

White filed an appeal with the court claiming he could not afford the official trial transcript. That transcript will now go to his retained appellate attorneys, Grace Shin and Niles Illich of Illich & Shin.

Illich is one of fewer than 200 board-certified criminal appellate attorneys in all of Texas. Shin worked in the appellate division at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office for 22 years.

The backstory:

Rapper MO3, whose legal name is Melvin Nobles, was shot 11 times and killed on Interstate 35 back in 2020. Prosecutors say the shooting was part of a murder-for-hire plot organized by rapper Yella Beezy, whose legal name is Markies Conway.

What they're saying:

Filing an appeal does not guarantee a new trial. Instead, it is a notice requesting a legal review of the process. 

"Contrary to what some people might believe, is not a new trial," Shin said. "An appeal is limited to everything that happened at trial. So basically you have a court reporter who records everything that happened at trial, you have all the documents that were filed into trial and ruled upon."

"We can almost always find an issue. Finding an issue, I don't think is hard to do," llich said. "Finding what's called a reversible issue is a much more complicated, more sophisticated legal analysis. So you go through it and you find an error that you think not only is an error, but one that can ultimately help our client either get a new trial, get a reduction in sentence, whatever the remedy might be for that error."

What's next:

White's trial transcript is not expected to be ready until January.

The lawyers get about 30 to 90 days to go through it and really start the appellate process, which could take a year to 18 months before it gets to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Dallas.

DallasTexasCrime and Public Safety