Legal News

Hal Turner Wins Another Mistrial, Decides to Mix it Up For Third

By Ashby Jones

Well, in regard to the wacky situation regarding shock-jock Hal Turner, the government can at least take pride in at least this much: they’ve providing a tidy little stimulus package to this man.

That’s right. So far, Newark lawyer Michael Orozco has done a bang-up job for Hal Turner, radio shock-jock charged with making death threats against Seventh Circuit judges Richard Posner, Frank Easterbook and William Bauer. In Turner’s first trial, Orozco won a hung-jury mistrial. In his second, Orozco won his client the same; the jury announced it had deadlocked on Wednesday night.

So what does Orozco get in return? According to this story over at northjersey.com, he gets dumped. For his third trial, according to the story, Turner will go with someone else: he reportedly feels "a new set of eyes" on his case may get him a better result. The story continues:

Citing his indigent status, U.S. District Judge Donald E. Walter appointed Peter Kirchheimer, the Brooklyn district's chief federal public defender, to represent Turner going forward.

In the meantime, no official decision has yet been made on whether to retry Turner. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, said a decision on whether to retry Turner could be made sometime next week.

"We've made no decisions and have no comment at this point," he said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).