California D4vd Secures Another Delay In Celeste Rivas Hernandez Murder Case

D4vd secures another court delay in his murder case, pushing the probable cause hearing to July 21 as his legal team reviews mounting evidence.

D4vd walked into the Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday in an orange jail uniform and waist shackles, his legal team already preparing for another delay in what’s becoming a pattern of postponements in his murder case.

The platinum-selling “Romantic Homicide” singer, 21, received his third hearing delay after his defense team requested additional time to review evidence, pushing the probable cause hearing from June 29 to July 21 with a status conference scheduled for July 7.

Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo found “good cause” to continue the hearing after reviewing a sealed declaration from one of Burke’s lead defense attorneys, Marilyn Bednarski.

The judge noted the upcoming hearing will span multiple days with numerous witnesses, and prosecutors must prove they have sufficient evidence to move forward with a jury trial.

D4vd, whose legal name is David Anthony Burke, pleaded not guilty and nodded along as the judge spoke, his lead attorney Blair Berk declining to comment as she exited the courthouse.

The case centers on the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose dismembered remains were discovered September 8, 2025, in the trunk of D4vd’s Tesla after the vehicle was towed from near his Hollywood Hills rental home.

Prosecutors allege D4vd met Rivas when she was 11 and initiated a sexual relationship when she turned 13, later paying a classmate $1,000 for a secret phone to maintain contact after authorities informed him of her age.

Prosecutors claim text messages between the two reference sex, pregnancy, and abortion, and that Rivas threatened to expose the relationship to destroy D4vd’s music career.

They allege he stabbed her multiple times after she arrived at his home on April 23, 2025, then stood by as she bled out.

The filing states D4vd purchased tools including chainsaws, a body bag, and an inflatable pool under a fake name, using the pool to prevent blood from spilling onto his garage floor before dismembering her body.

D4vd faces first-degree murder charges with special circumstance allegations of lying in wait, murder for financial gain, and murder of a witness, making him ineligible for bail.

He’s also charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains. Prosecutors discovered blood evidence in his garage matching Rivas’ DNA profile, and D4vd allegedly lied to friends and associates about the smell of decomposition in his home and vehicle.

The District Attorney’s Office has not yet announced whether it will seek the death penalty.

The July 21 hearing will determine whether prosecutors have built a strong enough case to proceed to trial.

Source: allhiphop.com, Mike Winslow, June 18, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

Death Penalty News For a World without the Death Penalty

What Tennessee wants to do next to Christa Pike is beyond grim

Christa Pike, the woman who survived two execution attempts in Tennessee earlier this week, remains hospitalized in critical condition, where presumably medical staff is at work trying to keep her alive. If she wakes from the coma she had entered, Tennessee officials want to start anew to inject lethal drugs into her seemingly too-small veins to kill her and carry out the state death warrant. Pike also is being treated for “significant injuries to both arms” sustained when two lethal injections of pentobarbital failed to kill her. If she dies, there will be no need to try again. As we know by now, Tennessee tried to put Pike to death Wednesday night by lethal injection for a murder she committed when she was 18. She would have been the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.

Tennessee | Republicans legislature to investigate other execution methods after failed lethal injections

Republican leaders in Tennessee’s legislature say they will investigate the reliability of lethal injection as an execution method after the state failed to execute two death row inmates in the span of five months. Gov. Bill Lee stopped the May execution of Tony Carruthers after a physician unsuccessfully attempted to insert intravenous lines to begin the lethal injection process for over an hour. Death row inmate Christa Pike survived two failed rounds of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol on Sept. 30 before the execution was halted. Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, is receiving medical care in a Nashville hospital.

Tennessee | Christa Pike’s lawyer says she has not regained consciousness since her failed execution

Christa Pike has remained unconscious and on a ventilator at a hospital in the four days since her failed execution in Tennessee, and her prognosis might not be known for days more, one of her lawyers said Sunday. Little has been released about Pike’s condition since Wednesday night’s execution attempt. She has since remained hospitalized under guard as doctors try to get the massive dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital out of her system. When asked whether she ever regained consciousness after the execution attempt, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, Pike’s lawyer, said on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Not that I am aware of.”

Florida Set to Execute Man Who Said He Killed to Reach Death Row, Challenging Misconception that Death Penalty Deters Crime

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Opinion | I Know Christa Pike’s Medical History. What Tennessee Did Is Unforgivable.

Dr. Zivot is an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician. He consulted on Christa Pike’s case before her attempted execution. On Wednesday night, Christa Pike lay strapped to a gurney at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville while the State of Tennessee injected pentobarbital, a sedative that is lethal in high doses, into her veins. When the 1st dose did not kill her, the execution team gave her a 2nd. At one point, she told the room her arm felt as if it were about to burst. She was nearly correct. More than an hour after the procedure began, an ambulance was called. She was severely injured but still alive.

Christa Pike's Survival Wasn't a Miracle. That's What Should Scare Us.

What happened in Tennessee's execution chamber is one of the most common failures in medicine Christa Pike is awake. A week after Tennessee strapped her to a gurney and gave her two doses of pentobarbital , she is off the ventilator and speaking from a hospital bed, still shackled to it. Her lawyers call her recovery " medically unprecedented. " Legal scholars say she is the first person in American history to survive a lethal injection after the drug was actually given. I understand the impulse to make such claims. I consulted for Pike's legal team, but I have also spent three decades in operating rooms and intensive care units (ICUs), and I want to resist the word "unprecedented" and the word "miracle" that hovers just behind it.

USA | Firing squad execution to be livestreamed, Pentagon says

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I’ve Covered Death Row Cases for Nearly a Decade. What Happened to Christa Pike Wasn’t an Anomaly.

Over the course of two hours, witnesses watched and listened as Christa Pike cried, whimpered and snored through Tennessee’s attempt to execute her. By the end of it, executioners had given her two doses of the state’s lethal injection drugs. Her arms were swollen and blistered, and one had turned purple, her attorneys said. And she was still alive, marking what legal experts say is the first time a prisoner in the U.S. has survived one dose—let alone two—of lethal injection drugs.

Singapore | Ministry of Home Affairs refutes claims that death penalty was discussed during visit by Israel's security ministry

The Ministry of Home Affairs says discussions with the Israeli government involved the sharing of best practices in emergency response, crime prevention, and forensics. Issues relating to the death penalty “were never part of the meeting and were not discussed." SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday (Sep 11) refuted claims by an Israeli media outlet that the death penalty was discussed during a visit by an Israeli delegation in May. The Haaretz newspaper reported on Sep 7 that a delegation comprising representatives from the Israel Prison Service and National Security Ministry made a “secret visit” to Singapore that month.

Christa Pike: 4 Major Questions As She Returns to Death Row

As Christa Pike returns to death row after surviving Tennessee’s attempt to execute her, several questions remain about her case and what comes next. Pike, 50, was discharged from hospital and moved back to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said on Saturday. She was hospitalized after surviving 2 doses of the lethal drug pentobarbital as Tennessee attempted to execute her on September 30. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her classmate at a Job Corps training program in Knoxville, Tennessee. Pike was 18 at the time.

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