The Lil Durk verdict now sits with the jury after his murder-for-hire trial closed and deliberations began. Even if he is found not guilty, he could still remain in custody while prosecutors move to keep him detained.
Durk Banks and the jury
Durk Banks, whose real name is Lil Durk, is facing a decision that goes beyond the current case. The racketeering case still hangs over him, and prosecutors had already tried to join the two trials before losing that request over the summer.
Neama Rahmani said prosecutors will “almost certainly” ask for detention even if they lose the trial. He added, “Detention is appropriate if there's two factors in place: someone is either a risk of flight, or they're a danger to the community.”
Los Angeles and Chicago
The current trial centers on a 2022 murder-for-hire that prosecutors say killed a rival's cousin near the Beverly Center. They say Banks ordered a group to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles to kill Tyqui, while the separate racketeering case involves alleged violence and drug trafficking tied to Atlanta and Chicago.
Adante Porter said that if Banks is acquitted, “Durk's team will have a much better argument to say, a lot of this similar conduct is being alleged, and maybe even some of the same people are involved in both situations,” and that “Given that the jury acquitted him in Los Angeles, that weakens the prosecutors' position that it's likely he did whatever he's accused of in Chicago.”
Federal detention fight
Porter also said federal judges have a broader set of supervision tools, including, “They can do home confinement, they can do electronic monitoring, they can have the probation department monitoring him and having him check in,” and “They can have daily check-ins and things of that nature. Or they could even have him in an alternate confinement situation. The feds have many more options available to them than your typical state court judge in terms of monitoring a person who's going up on trial.”
That means the verdict may not end the custody fight. If the jury clears him in the murder-for-hire trial, the next decision could still keep Lil Durk behind bars while the separate racketeering case moves ahead.
