
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 10, 1995                   TAG: 9506120019
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

COURT TO HEAR MURDER APPEAL

The Virginia Court of Appeals has agreed to review the case of Edwin C. Turner, who was convicted of killing a Roanoke man last year after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.

Turner, 41, is serving a life sentence in prison for the first-degree murder of William Dale Hartman.

Hartman, 30, was shot five times after being pursued in a 70-mph car chase that ended in the parking lot of Jamestown Plaza shopping center the night of April 3, 1992.

Defense attorney Jonathan Apgar raised an insanity defense at trial last year, arguing that Turner was a mentally disturbed man driven out of his mind during a feud in which Hartman burglarized his home and threatened to kill him.

A psychologist testified that Turner - also known as "Crazy Eddie" - experienced an irresistible impulse at the time of the shooting, a type of temporary insanity in which he was unable to control his actions.

But in convicting Turner of murder, the jury apparently believed another psychologist who testified that Turner was legally sane.

In an opinion this week granting an appeal, the Court of Appeals agreed to consider whether Roanoke Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein erred when he refused to let the jury consider a manslaughter charge.

A final decision is months away. Apgar said the case will be argued before a three-judge panel before a written decision is issued.

by CNB