The men accused of killing Young Dolph have been given a week to find legal representation. According to FOX13 Memphis, Judge Lee Coffee ordered 32-year-old Cornelius Smith and 23-year-old Justin Johnson to hire attorneys by 9 a.m. February 4th, or they’ll be assigned a public defender. The murder suspects declined court-appointed counsel during their initial hearing earlier this month, insisting they were in the process of finding lawyers for the case.
Judge Coffee told me the men in court on Friday (January 28th), “If you have a lawyer hired, that’s fine, but as I told you 10 days ago, I cannot allow you to sit in jail week after week, month after month, without a lawyer. If you don’t have a lawyer hired on Feb. 4, I’m going to hire a private attorney to represent both of you all.”
Both Johnson and Smith claimed their families were working on finding attorneys, and they are confident that they will have representation by the February 4th deadline.