Judge doubts need for new jury in Wright’s trial
Although Criminal Court Judge Lee Coffee did not rule Friday on a change of venue motion in the murder trial of Sherra Wright and Billy Ray Turner, Coffee seemed convinced that the pair could receive a fair trial with a Shelby County jury.
Wright and Turner are charged with first-degree murder in the 2010 shooting death of Wright’s ex-husband, former NBA player Lorenzen Wright.
During a report hearing Friday, Coffee said that with between 180 and 220 homicides each year, jurors in Shelby County hear more cases than in any other county in the state and have been able to render just verdicts.
“I would ask that the lawyers don’t underestimate the ability of jurors in Shelby County to be fair to both sides in this case,” Coffee said.
Shelby is also the most diverse county in the state, Coffee said, and the trial doesn’t exist that jurors here can’t try fairly.
Attorneys says Memphians ‘hateful’ to defendant Wright
Defense attorneys Juni Ganguli and
Laurie Hall have filed a motion asking that a jury from Davidson County hear the case when it goes to trial in September. They believe the hatred directed at Sherra Wright on social media is troubling.
“I can’t disagree with the court, but when I read social media and the comments that people make, they’re not favorable,” Ganguli said. “And I realize the people that make those comments are probably not going to be jurors because jurors have to be registered to vote, they have to be responsible, be employed and if you’re on social media making hateful comments, I’m not sure that you’d be the type of person who’d be particularly responsible or employed.”
“Everyone has a right to their opinion, of course,” Hall said. “It just goes back to the fact that it seems in Memphis that people are particularly hateful toward our client and again, they’re sympathetic toward the victim in this case.”
Deborah Marion, Lorenzen Wright’s mother, was also in court Friday and was happy to see the case moving forward. Facts, she said, won’t change no matter where the trial is held.
“I don’t care where you go. Like I say, all you’re going to need is a translator. Take it to Japan. It’s gonna be the same thing,” Marion said.
Marion rarely misses a court hearing, and on Friday she wore a bracelet with a photograph of her son that was made by a friend as a birthday gift.
The defendants will return to court for a hearing on a string of attorneys’ motions on May 28.
And on June 17, Turner, a convicted felon, is scheduled to be tried on gun charges that are unrelated to the Lorenzen Wright case. He was charged with being a convicted felon in possession of firearms after police found two guns at his home during a search shortly after he was arrested in December of 2017.
Turner’s attorney, John Keith Perry, unsuccessfully fought to have that trial put off until after the murder case is settled.
Years after killing, informant leads to arrests
Lorenzen Wright died in the early minutes of July 19, 2010, after being shot multiple times in a secluded field in southeast Shelby County. His body was found nine days later.
An autopsy report found he’d been shot at least 11 times.
His last known whereabouts were his ex-wife’s home in Collierville. When questioned by police as they searched for him, she lead them to believe he was involved in criminal activity.
No arrests were made in the case until Jimmie Martin, Sherra Wright’s cousin and a convicted murderer, sent investigators to a lake in Walnut, Mississippi, where they found a gun they say was used in the shooting.
Identified as an unindicted suspect, Martin told law enforcement that an earlier attempt to kill Lorenzen Wright in April 2010 at an Atlanta condo failed. After the basketball forward and center was killed, Martin said, he was enlisted to help clean up the crime scene.
Turner, a deacon at Mt. Olive No. 1 Missionary Baptist Church in Collierville, was arrested at a Collierville convenience store on Dec. 4, 2017.
Sherra Wright was living in Riverside, California. She was arrested there on Dec. 8, 2017, and extradited back to Memphis.
Her bond is $20 million. His bond is $15 million. Both have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. Their trial is set for Sept. 16.
Shortly after his client’s arrest, Perry blasted the prosecution’s reliance on a convicted murder who was caught in “40 different lies” during his trial.
Martin was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, Martha Jean Bownes.
Records show that during the 2009 trial, a jury acquitted Martin of first-degree murder, but deadlocked on the lesser charge of second-degree murder. He was out on bond until his retrial in 2012.
While in custody, Sherra Wright has presented challenges at Jail East, where female pre-trial defendants are housed. She stripped naked and stuffed her clothes in the toilet, flooding it.
Her then-attorneys, Blake Ballin and Steve Farese Jr., claimed that as evidence of her mental deterioration.
Sherra Wright, however, parted with Ballin and Farese, and a mental evaluation deemed her fit to stand trial.