MEMPHIS, Tenn. — When a jury found Billy Ray Turner guilty of killing basketball stand out Lorenzen Wright, one of those most surprised was the man who has represented Turner since his arrest.
Attorney John Keith Perry was hoping for a much different outcome. He sat down with April Thompson to talk about the case he plans to appeal.
John Keith Perry has had a few days to think about the murder trial of Billy Ray Turner.
“We have the highest degree of respect for the jury process,” Perry said.
However, he was hoping jurors wouldn’t buy the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Jimmie Martin.
Martin said his cousin, Sherra Wright, told him she and Billy killed Sherra’s ex-husband, NBA basketball player Lorenzen Wright.
“His testimony was that somebody told him a lot of specific details about an event that he says he wasn’t present for,” Perry said.
In court, Perry pushed home how Martin had gotten immunity from prosecution for his testimony.
“The fact that they have signed these agreements make some of that testimony somewhat questionable,” Perry said.
Instead, the jury heard the evidence, including how Martin said they ambushed Lorenzen.
“Lorenzen had his back to them. They started chasing him, they started firing at him, chasing him. He jumped through the fence. He was jumping like a deer. They caught him when he fell,” Jimmie Martin said at the trial. “Both of them had guns.”
“The prosecution said it best. The devil is in the details,” Perry said. “Those details are more likely than not are from a person that would have first hand knowledge.”
Perry said Billy Turner is disappointed in the verdict and just wanted a chance to clear his name. But he said the trial did shed some light.
“Because of the magnitude of the case, a lot of people in the public got a chance also to see something might not just smell right about it,” Perry said.
As for why Turner didn’t take the stand, Perry said he didn’t think his client needed to.
“We talked about it in counsel/client and said, hey we think that right now we don’t think that proof beyond a reasonable doubt has been rendered, to be frank,” Perry said. “We didn’t think he needed to. But we weren’t on that jury.”
The only witness Perry called was one woman who said Turner was at her party until around 10 p.m. the night of the killing. Lorenzen was killed around midnight.
“It did not seem plausible that a person could be having that type of an evening and then all of a sudden say, ‘you know well I need to go change faces and sit out in the woods and try to kill somebody,'” Perry said.
If there is a next time, he said they will call more witnesses, even possibly Sherra Wright. He said she wasn’t called this time because he wasn’t sure how it would go on the stand.
“If the Court of Appeals reviews it and says we are entitled to a next time, there are a lot of things that could happen differently I believe,” Perry said.
Billy Ray Turner will be back in court April 22, 2022 for sentencing on two other charges related to Lorenzen Wright.
John Perry said after that, they plan to file a motion of appeal.