Tory Lanez has lost two of his appeals seeking to overturn his convictions for shooting Megan Thee Stallion, with judges rejecting his argument that the gun allegedly used in the crime had gone “missing.”
In a pair of rulings on Tuesday, a California appeals court denied two so-called habeas corpus petitions filed by Lanez’s attorneys challenging the his felony convictions over the 2020 incident, in which the singer shot Megan in the foot during a drunken argument.
Among other arguments, Lanez claimed in his petitions that key pieces of evidence — including the gun used in the shooting and bullet fragments removed from Megan’s foot — had not been made available to defense attorneys, violating his due process rights.
But in one of Tuesday’s rulings, the appeals court cited a response from prosecutors that said the gun was still simply sitting at the Los Angeles Police Department. And the court said testing it again for DNA evidence would have made no difference to the case.
“Petitioner has failed to [show] that additional DNA testing would establish a claim of actual innocence,” the court wrote. “Both parties’ experts at trial agreed that DNA testing of the magazine showed none of petitioner’s DNA was present, and as to the gun itself the inconclusive findings could neither exclude nor include petitioner as a minor contributor to the DNA found on the gun.”
The court also rejected arguments that prosecutors violated Lanez’s rights by failing to collect a DNA sample from Kelsey Harris – a friend of Megan who Lanez’s lawyers suggested at trial had actually pulled the trigger. “Petitioner essentially concedes that such a claim is ineffectual,” the appeals court wrote. “The prosecution does not have a duty to collect evidence helpful to the defense.”
Tuesday’s rulings are the not the end of the road for Lanez. His direct appeal of his convictions, in which his lawyers have called the guilty verdict a “a miscarriage of justice,” remains pending before the same appeals court. A live hearing for oral arguments is scheduled for next week, with a ruling at some point in the months ahead.
Lanez’s lawyers did not immediately return a request for comment.
Lanez (Daystar Peterson) was convicted in December 2022 on three felony counts over the violent 2020 incident, in which he shot at the feet of Megan (real name Megan Pete) during an argument following a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house in the Hollywood Hills. According to prosecutors, when Megan got out of the vehicle and began walking away, Lanez shouted “Dance, bitch!” and fired a gun at her feet. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In addition to arguments about evidence and DNA, Lanez’s team has offered up testimony from Bradley James, a bodyguard for Harris, that he overheard Harris say that she fired the gun. But in Tuesday’s decisions, the appeals court said Lanez “offers no explanation” why such testimony was submitted in July 2025 “on the eve of oral argument.”
“To the extent petitioner asserts the James affidavit constitutes new evidence, the petition is untimely, and petitioner fails to explain and justify the significant delay in seeking habeas corpus relief on this basis,” the court wrote.
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