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DEL.ICIO.USJury selection under way in Lynn Turner trial
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lynn Turner was back in the courthouse where she once worked Monday for the first day of jury selection for her trial in the 2001 antifreeze poisoning death of Forsyth County firefighter Randy Thompson.
Turner already is facing life in prison for killing her husband, Glenn Turner, in 1995 with a lethal dose of ethylene glycol — the sweet, odorless chemical in antifreeze.
This time, Turner, a former Cobb County 911 dispatcher and secretary in the Forsyth County district attorney’s office in the mid-1990s, is fighting for her life. If she’s convicted of murder in Thompson’s death, District Attorney Penny Penn will ask the jury to impose the death sentence.
Finding 12 jurors and three alternates is expected to take two weeks, and might not even be possible. Turner’s last trial had to be moved from Cobb County to Middle Georgia because of pretrial publicity. Forsyth County has budgeted $150,000 to cover the costs of the trial, and it had help Monday with court security from neighboring Hall County.
Wearinga maroon sweater and black pants, Turner sat taking pages of notes as her defense team and prosecutors began screening the first of a record 600 potential jurors.
About a dozen potential jurors were excused because they are fulltime students, primary caregivers to young children or over age 70.
In one-on-one questioning, the focus was on pretrial publicity and jurors’ views of the death penalty. A mother of two who was the first to be questioned in detail said she was aware of Turner’s conviction in the first trial.
She said she believed Lynn Turner was probably guilty in this case as well, but she could put aside her personal views and go by the evidence heard at trial.
Chief Superior Court Judge Jeffrey S. Bagley was considering a defense motion that the woman be disqualified.
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