{"id":44483,"date":"2025-08-21T18:23:35","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T18:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/21\/man-accused-of-arranging-ambush-found-not-guilty\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T18:23:35","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T18:23:35","slug":"man-accused-of-arranging-ambush-found-not-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/21\/man-accused-of-arranging-ambush-found-not-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Accused of Arranging Ambush Found Not Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tHernandez Govan, who faced charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the shooting death of Memphis rapper Young Dolph<\/a>, has been found not guilty. The 45-year-old was freed following three hours of deliberation, according to the Associated Press<\/em>. <\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tGovan was arrested and charged in November 2022. At the time, Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy claimed that Govan \u201csolicited the murder and put it into motion.\u201d Govan pleaded not guilty. <\/a>He was not explicitly accused of murdering Dolph, who was gunned down on Nov. 17, 2021 while visiting Makeda\u2019s Homemade Butter Cookies in Memphis. The rapper was shot 22 times by two masked gunmen.<\/p>\n

\n\tJustin Johnson, one of the two men charged in the shooting, was sentenced to life in prison<\/a> in September 2024 after being found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Shelby County Assistant District Attorney Paul Hagerman argued in court that Johnson and Cornelius Smith, the other suspected gunman who has yet to stand trial, had been hand-picked by Govan to carry out the attack. <\/p>\n

\n\tSmith testified against Govan, stating that Govan hired him and Johnson to \u201cdo the hits\u201d and notified them of when Dolph would be in Memphis. He argued that he was unaware that there were \u201chits\u201d out on Dolph\u2019s record label, Paper Route Empire, prior to speaking to Govan. He also suspected that Govan might have been working with the FBI. Govan\u2019s defense attorney Manny Arora stated that Smith\u2019s testimony was influenced by his desire to receive a less harsh sentence than Johnson. <\/p>\n

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\n\tArora argued that the cellphone communications presented in court between Govan, Johnson, and Smith did not directly tie his client to the killings in an incriminating manner. \u201cWhile we are happy with the result, we were disappointed the prosecution decided to pursue this case, knowing the investigation lacked merit,\u201d Arora tells Rolling Stone.<\/em> \u201cThe high-profile nature of the case doesn\u2019t mean it is appropriate for the State to put someone\/anyone on trial. The fact that any judge signed off on warrants to authorize Mr. Govan\u2019s arrest and have him sit in jail for nearly a year is shameful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou spend so much time making mistakes, learning from your mistakes, going through growing pains with someone, to finally have a period of time to experience everything that you wanted to, to finally get to a place where you\u2019re ready to submit your love,\u201d Dolph\u2019s partner, Mia Jaye, previously told Rolling Stone<\/a><\/em>. \u201cWe were in a place of love. We wanted to celebrate with our loved ones. We were ready, you know? And the day never comes, you know, because [he] was taken away in the blink of an eye, like, just never saw it coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Hernandez Govan, who faced charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the shooting death of Memphis rapper Young Dolph, has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":44484,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}