CARROLLTON - Circuit Judge Clarence Morgan has appointed an attorney to handle death penalty appeals by convicted capital murderer Edwin Hart Turner.
The judge also ruled that Turner is indigent now, although at one time he had a trust fund at the Bank of Commerce in Greenwood.
Morgan appointed Jackson Williams, director of a new state agency, the Office of Post-Conviction Counseling, as Turner's lawyer.
Steve Lary, executive vice president of the bank, testified Wednesday afternoon during a hearing to determine whether Turner could afford to hire his own legal representatives in a fight to keep from being executed.
Lary said Turner's trust fund was drained of assets by early 1997.
District Attorney Doug Evans questioned Lary and Greenwood attorney H. D. Brock about the workings of the trust and other details of the John Edwin Turner estate.
Brock wrote the will for Edwin Turner, who was Hart Turner's father. The will led to the establishment of a trust fund for the prisoner and for his brother, Byron Trent Turner, after Edwin Turner's death in a farm explosion in Leflore County in 1985.
Brock also was involved in legal matters surrounding a house that Lary testified "was never part of the trust." The house on Spring Lake in Carroll County is where Hart Turner was residing in December 1995 when he and a teen-age companion, Murrell Stewart, went on a drunken rampage in the Valley Hill area, shooting two men to death.
Stewart pleaded guilty and is spending two life sentences in prison with no possibility of parole. He testified against Turner in Turner's capital murder trial four years ago in Hattiesburg. Turner, then 23, got the death penalty for shooting to death Eddie Brooks, a clerk at Mims Auto Truck Village, and Everett Curry, a customer at Mims One Stop on U. S. 82.
The convicted killer, pale and thin, attended the hearing Wednesday.
Evans quizzed Lary about the handling of the trust and its assets, which did include a 363-acre tract of land partly planted in pines that were around 10 years old in early 1996, Lary said. This is when bank officers hired Bobby Smith to appraise the tract in preparation for selling Hart Turner's half-interest in it to his brother "to keep it in the family."
The appraisal was for $220,000. Half that money went to the prisoner, Lary testified.
No auction to seek competitive bidding for Hart Turner's half of the inherited land was held, and there were no multiple appraisals.
According to a statement filed in December 1995, the trust started with $96,000 in cash assets, and then was infused with the $110,000.
Turner hired an attorney, Bo Gwin, to defend him in the looming defense battle and authorized the bank to pay Gwin $50,000. Another $75,000 went to the lawyer who wound up representing Turner at trial, John Colette. Hattiesburg lawyer Jim Dukes got $25,000 for assisting at trial. Bills totaling nearly $30,000 were paid in expenses.
By April 1996, the prisoner had fired Gwin. Gwin, reportedly citing breach of contract, refused to refund any portion of his $50,000 retainer, Lary testified.
Turner also allegedly authorized the bank to sell his half-interest in the Spring Lake property to prepare for his defense, Lary said, and Brock, after he took the witness stand, testified he got into the situation to try and salvage some holdings for "the boys" he has always known.
Brock said as he wrote the will for Edwin Turner a couple of years before Turner was killed, he was aware that according to that will, no encumbrances or sale of the Spring Lake property could be made until Jan. 1, 2004.
Yet, Brock said, the house on Spring Lake was "run down" and would get worse. Nobody ever advertised the house for rental, however. Brock said this would have been impractical.
Morgan said the prisoner would be entitled to proceeds from a lease.
The judge ordered Hart Turner's portion of the eventual proceeds of an eventual sale of the Spring Lake property be attached for payment of expenses incurred in Turner's continuing defense by the Office of Post-Conviction Counseling. Anything left over would be given back, Morgan ordered.
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Turner's conviction.
As to whom Brock was representing in arrangements that started with the transferal of a deed to Hart Turner's half interest in the house to his brother in September 1996, Brock said he guessed he was "representing Trent," but he didn't recall ever billing him. The deal resulted in a lease arrangement with Mr. and Mrs. Jack Ruff that includes an option for $50,000 to buy the house when it can legally be sold.
Brock said it didn't make any sense just to let the Spring Lake house be sold at a foreclosure sale. The trust had been expending funds for insurance, maintenance, and paying off a mortgage of about $80,000, which Lary said is not with the Bank of Commerce.
Brock said he was trying to stop the "bleeding" of the trust. He knew there were civil lawsuits that would attach the property, also.
Under the agreement reached with Ruff and his wife in early 1997, Brock said, the Ruffs keep up the place and pay insurance, taxes and mortgage installments.
