HOUSTON—
The life sentence of a teen charged for killing a long-time Dickinson, Texas, store owner has been overturned. On Saturday, Litrey Turner and his family found out they can look forward to a new trial. Litrey Turner and Andrew "Young Money" Brown III were charged with capital murder for robbing a mini mart and shooting the store owner in 2006.Brown received a 40-year prison sentence in exchange for testifying against Litrey Turner, who was convicted of capital murder when he was 17-years-old. Since the jury was unable to consider the lesser charge of robbery, attorney's representing Litrey Turner convinced a three-judge panel that this conviction should be reversed.
One of them credited those judges for "having a sense of justice."
"The Texas legislature repealed life without parole for juveniles convicted of capital murder on September 1st, but they didn't make the statute retroactive," said attorney, Brian Wice, who is representing the Turner family.
There are 20 juveniles serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed between the ages of 15-17, including three for sentences committed when they were 15. Litrey Turner is one of them. He was convicted of capital murder at 17 for the death of 55-year-old Phuong Lam in 2006.
"Here you have a 15-year-old, who wasn't the alleged trigger man," said attorney, Eric J. Davis, about the incident. "And the alleged trigger man gets the 40 year sentence?"
It was Andrew "Young Money" Brown who walked out with the lighter sentence.
"He [Litrey] wasn't this type of person to do anything like that," his grandmother, Hattie Turner, said.
"I filed a motion for new trial; litigated a motion for new trial, and then started working on the spill," said Davis.
Wice and Davis argued Litrey Turner's case in front of The First Circuit Court of Appeals, raising key issues about the appeal. The court focused on one issue for a new trial.
"And that issue was that the judge aired in not giving a lesser included instruction," said Davis.
There wasn't any direct evidence linking Litrey Turner to the killing.
"Circumstantial evidence, for the most part, linked him to it," said Davis. "And the one thing the circumstantial evidence may not have ruled out, if a jury was able to consider it, is that maybe he committed a crime of robbery instead of a murder."
"Any criminal defendant convicted of any crime, but particularly capital murder as in this case, by and large has a better shot of winning the Heisman Trophy than getting their conviction reversed," said Wice regarding how huge this is for Turner's family.
In the meantime, that family is preparing itself for a new trial for Litrey Turner, which should begin in several weeks.
"We just keep praying for him and everything. It's gonna be alright," said Shirley Morris, who is one of his other relatives.
"I haven't touched him in four or five years or whatever how long it's been," Litrey's mother, Brenda Turner, said with tears in her eyes.
Texas State law prohibits the death penalty, which is capital murder's other possible punishment, for anyone younger than 18-years-old.
