ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996 TAG: 9610020040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK
THE JUDGE should have let jurors consider a lesser charge. But even if he had, appeals judges ruled, it wouldn't have changed the outcome for "Crazy Eddie" Turner.
The Virginia Court of Appeals has affirmed the murder conviction of Edwin "Crazy Eddie" Turner, who unsuccessfully raised an insanity defense to charges that he shot a man to death during a wild car chase through Southeast Roanoke.
In a 2-to-1 decision, a panel of the appeals court wrote that a Roanoke judge should have allowed the jury to consider a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. But two members of the panel ruled the error was harmless, meaning the jury would have reached the same conclusion even if manslaughter had been an option.
A jury convicted Turner of first-degree murder in 1994 and sentenced him to life in prison for killing 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.
Turner raised an insanity defense, arguing that he was driven out of his mind during a feud in which Hartman burglarized his home and threatened to kill him. A psychologist testified that Turner experienced an irresistible impulse at the time of the killing, a type of temporary insanity that made him unable to control his actions.
But in convicting Turner, the jury apparently believed another psychologist who testified that Turner was legally sane.
In a 19-page opinion released Tuesday, two members of the Court of Appeals ruled that because the jury declined to convict Turner of second-degree murder, Judge Clifford Weckstein's failure to include manslaughter as an option did not change the outcome.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge James Benton wrote that the jury could have determined that Turner acted out of the heat of passion, and therefore should have been allowed to consider a manslaughter charge.
Defense attorney Jonathan Apgar said he will ask for a rehearing before the full Court of Appeals.
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB