Rapper Lil Durk's Jury Gets Five Questions. Deliberations Start Wednesday.

Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald is still revising instructions on stalking and murder-for-hire counts against Durk Banks and two co-defendants.

Closing arguments in the federal murder-for-hire trial of the rapper Lil Durk are set for Tuesday, and the jury will get five separate allegations. Los Angeles Magazine reported that U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald spent Friday working through the proposed instructions that will frame those questions. The wording isn't locked: the outlet reported the judge was still revising it, particularly on aiding and abetting.

The rapper, whose legal name is Durk Banks, is on trial in Los Angeles alongside two co-defendants, Deondre Wilson and David Lindsey. Their jurors aren't being handed one broad question about a killing. They're being handed narrower ones, and on two of them a finding about whether a man died could change the punishment.

The five allegations, in the order the proposed instructions list them

1. Conspiracy to commit stalking. The first of the five substantive allegations described in the proposed instructions, per Los Angeles Magazine's account of Friday's hearing.
2. Stalking Tyquian Bowman, the rapper Quando Rondo, with a dangerous weapon. Jurors take up the stalking question first under the proposed language. A separate finding follows on the dangerous weapon, held to the same standard of proof.
3. Stalking Saviay'a Robinson, resulting in his death. Here too the jury makes a second, separate finding — whether the charged conduct resulted in the death — which the outlet reported could affect the potential sentence.
4. Conspiring to use interstate commerce facilities in a murder-for-hire that resulted in Robinson's death.
5. Using interstate commerce facilities in a murder-for-hire that resulted in Robinson's death. Banks's defense objected to applying conspiracy liability for a co-conspirator's crimes — a Pinkerton instruction — to this count. The government told Fitzgerald it wouldn't argue that Banks is responsible for a bounty or any act another person started on their own, outside his alleged agreement and without his knowledge.

What the instructions say isn't enough

Association alone won't do it, according to the proposed language. Neither will helping without knowing what you're helping with, or standing at the scene. The government would have to prove a defendant knowingly and intentionally assisted the specific crime.

Fitzgerald raised the risk of what he called "cross-contamination" between the two stalking allegations and proposed splitting the aiding-and-abetting instruction in two, one tied to Bowman and one tied to Robinson. Defense attorney Christy O'Connor said that eased her concerns about unanimity, the outlet reported, and prosecutors didn't object. The judge also said the government must show the conduct was aimed at Robinson, but not that the defendants knew his name.

One more limit rides along. Prosecutors have pointed at alleged Chicago gang crimes and a 2021 attempt on Bowman's life in Georgia; the proposed instructions would tell jurors they may weigh that kind of evidence for intent, motive or preparation, and may not reason from it that the charged crimes must have happened.

What the jury heard

Prosecutors allege that on Aug. 19, the day Robinson was killed, Wilson, Lindsey and three cooperating witnesses followed Bowman and Robinson with three stolen handguns. Jurors saw evidence of two cars — a rented white BMW and a stolen white Infiniti — tailing Bowman's black Escalade for hours. Kavon Grant, Banks's assistant, testified for the government. He said he lined up the guns, the cars and the ski masks, and that the order came from the rapper: "Durk told us to."

Kacey Hester pleaded guilty to the murder and took the stand for prosecutors. He said $10,000 came to him for recording a song on the album Loyal Bros 2, and that he doubted the spot would have been his without his part in the killing. Prosecutors allege Banks promised payment ahead of the shooting; no proof of a payment surfaced at trial, the outlet reported. The defense casts Grant as the mastermind, pointing to his ties to the late rapper King Von.

Tuesday's closings run three hours for the defense, split among the three legal teams, and two and a half for the government. The jury is expected to start deliberating Wednesday.

Source: lamag.com, retrieved September 6, 2026.