Home > Blog > Archives > 2007 > January > 11
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Potential poisoning trial jurors interviewed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jury selection continued at a slow pace Wednesday in the trial of Lynn Turner, a former Cobb County 911 operator accused of killing her husband and her Forsyth County boyfriend.
By 7 p.m., as the third day of juror interviews was winding down, only 14 of 42 prosecutive jurors had been qualified to move to a later round of questioning, and possibly be picked for Turner’s two-phase murder trial.
Court officials expect jury selection to take about two weeks, with the trial lasting another two to three weeks.
Turner, 38, is facing trial in the 2001 antifreeze poisoning death of Randy Thompson, a Forsyth County firefighter and the father of her two children. If she’s convicted, prosecutors will ask that she be given the death penalty.
Turner has already been sentenced to life in prison in the death of her husband, Cobb County police officer Glenn Turner, in 1995. Investigators believe Glenn Turner, like Thompson, also died of antifreeze poisoning.
A record 600 potential jurors have been summoned for Turner’s trial. If it proceeds, this would be the first death penalty trial in Forsyth County since Jack Potts was sentenced in the 1980s for the 1975 kidnapping and murder of a 24-year-old auto mechanic.
But defense attorneys Jimmy Berry and Vic Reynolds are trying to have the trial moved from Cumming because of pretrial publicity. They convinced a judge to move her previous trial from Cobb County to Houston County in Middle Georgia.
Only a handful of the prospective jurors who have been interviewed had not heard of the case, which has attracted national publicity with its themes of poison, sex, money and murder.
The majority of those who were disqualified were ruled out because of their knowledge of pretrial publicity or their views on the death penalty.
A school teacher who was questioned Wednesday was excused after she said that because of her Roman Catholic faith she did not believe she could vote to put anyone to death.
District Attorney Penny Penn has said she expects the case against Lynn Turner will focus on the similiarities in the two men’s lives and deaths.
Both Glenn Turner and Thompson were in their early 30 and initially were thought to have died from natural causes. Both men also were romatically involved with Lynn Turner, who some have described as a police groupie.
If a local jury is selected, Chief Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Bagley has said the jury will be sequested in a local hotel for the length of the trial. If jurors vote for conviction, a second phase of trial will decide Turner’s fate.
Although prosecutors will ask for the death penalty, jurors will have the options to vote for life with parole or life without parole.
Permalink | | Categories: Lynn Turner trial
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
