RondoNumbaNine’s RPG Photo: Conviction, Sentence, and Appeals

Chicago drill rapper RondoNumbaNine, whose legal name is Clint Massey, is serving a 39-year prison sentence for the first-degree murder of livery driver Javan Boyd in February 2014. He was sentenced on July 5, 2016, and is currently held at Danville Correctional Center in Illinois with a projected parole date of February 24, 2053.¹²

What He Was Convicted Of

Around 3 a.m. on February 22, 2014, 28-year-old Javan Boyd was sitting in his car near 38th Street and Princeton Avenue in the Wentworth Gardens housing project, waiting to pick up a passenger for Pershing Livery. Earlier that night, a fight had broken out at a nearby party. Trial evidence showed Massey, co-defendant Courtney Ealy, and a third man known as D-Rose returned to the area in a multi-vehicle convoy to confront people from the altercation.³

The lead car made a U-turn and stopped in front of Boyd’s vehicle. Two men walked up to the passenger side and asked Boyd if he was “from over here.” When he said yes, they opened fire.⁴³⁵

The shooting was captured on Chicago Housing Authority surveillance cameras. Ealy’s fingerprint was recovered from the passenger-side window of Boyd’s car, and he had dropped his iPhone while fleeing.³ Massey was charged with murder in early March 2014 and held on $2 million bail.⁶ He and Ealy were tried together in Cook County before a single jury, and both were convicted of first-degree murder.

How the 39-Year Sentence Breaks Down

The jury returned a special finding that Massey was armed with a firearm during the murder, which triggered a 15-year sentencing enhancement under Illinois law. The same firearm allegation was found “not proven” as to Ealy.⁷⁵²

Why He Was Tried as an Adult at 17

Massey was 17 at the time of the shooting. Under Illinois law, that did not put the case in juvenile court. The state’s “automatic transfer” provisions require minors aged 15 or older who are charged with first-degree murder to be prosecuted as adults, with no judicial discretion to send the case to juvenile court.⁸ A 2016 reform (Public Act 99-0258) expanded judicial discretion for some 16- and 17-year-olds in other cases but kept automatic transfer in place for first-degree murder.⁹

Appeals That Have Failed

Massey has challenged the conviction twice. On direct appeal, he argued his trial lawyer should have more aggressively pursued a theory that Ealy was the sole shooter, that hearsay testimony about his clothing was improperly admitted, that a mistrial should have followed an outburst by the victim’s family, and that the trial court erred in holding a material witness hearing for eyewitness Kaprice Johns without notifying him. The Appellate Court of Illinois rejected all four claims and affirmed the conviction on June 4, 2019.³

He then filed an attorney-drafted postconviction petition on October 12, 2021, raising four new claims: actual innocence based on an affidavit from eyewitness Anton Kinermon naming a different person as the shooter; prosecutorial misconduct over an allegedly fabricated pretrial statement from witness T’Keyah Herbert; a Brady violation alleging the state concealed a deal to quash an Indiana warrant against Kaprice Johns in exchange for her testimony; and ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to investigate alibi witnesses. The trial court dismissed the petition on December 22, 2021, as “frivolous and patently without merit.” The appellate court affirmed on December 15, 2023, finding the Kinermon affidavit “affirmatively and incontestably in conflict with the trial record” because surveillance video contradicted the affiant’s account. The court called the prosecutorial misconduct claim “baseless,” found no evidence of a deal with Johns, and deferred to trial counsel’s strategic choices on the alibi witnesses.¹⁰

Could He Get Out Earlier?

Illinois abolished traditional parole for crimes committed after 1978, so Massey has no standard parole mechanism available to him. His release depends on serving the sentence or on a change in the law.

Two recent efforts to change that law have not helped him. A 2023 statute signed by Governor JB Pritzker allows people sentenced to life in prison for crimes committed under age 21 to become eligible for release after 40 years, but only for those sentenced after June 1, 2019. Massey was sentenced in 2016, so the law does not reach him. A broader measure, House Bill 3332, would have opened parole eligibility to people incarcerated for crimes committed under age 21 regardless of sentencing date. It failed in the Illinois House on April 10, 2025, by a vote of 49-51 and was declared lost, meaning it cannot be recalled in the current session.¹¹

Where He Is Now

Massey is incarcerated at Danville Correctional Center in Illinois. According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, his projected parole date is February 24, 2053, and his projected discharge date is February 24, 2056. Both his direct appeal and his postconviction petition have been denied, and no further proceedings are reflected in available court records.¹

1
Illinois Department of Corrections. IDOC Inmate Search – Clint Massey
2
XXL Magazine. RondoNumbaNine Sentenced to 39 Years for Murder
3
Illinois Courts. People v. Massey, 2019 IL App (1st) 162407
4
DNAinfo Chicago. Second Person Charged in Killing of Livery Driver
5
Chicago Tribune. Man Gets 38 Years in 2014 Slaying of Livery Driver
6
DNAinfo Chicago. Teen Charged With Murder of Livery Driver
7
Illinois Courts. People v. Ealy, 2024 IL App (1st) 221748
8
Illinois Department of Human Services. Raising the Age of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction
9
Illinois Juvenile Justice Commission. Juvenile Transfer Report
10
FindLaw. People v. Massey, 2023 IL App (1st) 220123
11
Capitol News Illinois. Legislature Kills Bill That Would Have Expanded Resentencing for Youth Offenders