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Turner outcome evokes O.J. trial
Comparisons of two cases produce some similarities, differences and a civil case
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Published: August 22, 2009
Sleepy Davie County is a world away from glitzy L.A., but yesterday we learned about a similarity: A man in either place can nearly cut a woman's head off and not have to spend one day in prison for it.
Nearly 14 years ago, a jury in Los Angeles decided that O.J. Simpson was not guilty of murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. Yesterday morning, a jury in Davie County decided that Dr. Kirk Turner was not guilty of murdering his wife, Jennifer.
Both men were accused of fearsome acts of blind rage, charged with using knives to commit bloody crimes against the women they had once loved enough to marry.
Simpson and Turner both walked out of courtrooms as free men: Simpson to a life of golf and searching for the real killer, and Turner to his girlfriend, and who knows what else.
In both instances, news about the swift not-guilty verdicts -- in both cases, jurors took just a few hours to reach their decisions -- shocked many observers and stunned the prosecutors charged with winning convictions.
"I can't say that I think justice was served," District Attorney Garry Frank said as he drove away from the Davie County Courthouse. "The system worked the way it was designed."
Differences, similarities
Comparisons between the Simpson and Turner cases started within minutes of the verdict's announcement.
"It's just like O.J. all over again," one man was overheard saying to another as they walked down Fourth Street in Winston-Salem during the lunch hour.
At first blush, that seems like a reach. There are obvious and marked differences in the cases.
Simpson claimed that an unknown assailant slashed his wife's throat; Turner convinced his jury that he acted in self-defense after Jennifer Turner attacked him with a 7-foot spear.
O.J.'s attorneys successfully played the race card to a predominantly black and female jury in a diverse Los Angeles pool; Attorneys for Turner -- a wealthy white dentist -- successfully convinced an overwhelmingly white jury in mostly white Davie County.
Then again, there seemed to be overwhelming evidence in both cases that pointed to guilt in killings committed in passionate outpouring of violence.
In the Simpson case, prosecutors said that the NFL Hall of Famer slashed his ex-wife's throat in a fit of jealous rage, a final act in a violent confrontation. In the Turner case, prosecutors said that he slashed his soon-to-be ex-wife's throat in a blind rage over a contentious and expensive separation, the final act of a bloody confrontation.
In both cases, the defendants were wealthy men with access to enough cash to retain legal dream teams. Simpson famously brought in Johnnie Cochran, a nationally known defense attorney, and a host of expensive experts to craft a defense.
Turner hired Joe Cheshire V and Brad Bannon, two of the most prominent criminal-defense attorneys in North Carolina, fresh off the Duke lacrosse case. Cheshire and Bannon, in turn, used Turner's money to hire paid expert witnesses from as far away as Florida and Virginia.
Rich men getting all the justice they could afford. Similar, right?
Civil case still looms
Lawyers on both sides of the courtroom rejected the twin notions that somehow prosecutors were bested by smart, out-of-town attorneys, and that bumpkin jurors were bamboozled by their pricey experts.
"I never fault a person for hiring the best legal representation he can," Frank said. "They put on a thorough, aggressive defense. I don't think we were outlawyered."
Cheshire said that such talk about rich men is an "immense insult to the hard-working jurors" who heard all the evidence presented in the courtroom.
"Money doesn't buy jury verdicts in North Carolina," Cheshire said. "It never has, and it never will."
Regardless of perceptions about the comparisons, there is another undeniable similarity between the Simpson and Turner cases -- civil wrongful- death lawsuits filed against the acquitted.
The families of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman famously won their lawsuits. It remains to be seen whether the estate of Jennifer Turner (her survivors) will prevail in its suit.
"The outcome of the criminal case in no way will affect the civil proceeding," said David Freedman, one of the lawyers representing Jennifer Turner's estate. "As people are aware in other high-profile cases that preceded this one, there is often a different outcome in the civil case."
Those who believe that justice was butchered yesterday can only hope that another jury comes to a different conclusion in a civil case against a man who used a knife to nearly decapitate his wife.
■ Scott Sexton can be reached at 727-7481 or at ssexton@wsjournal.com.
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