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Turnidge lawyers in appeal before Oregon high court

The Columbian
Published: January 14, 2015, 4:00pm

SALEM, Ore. — Lawyers for a man convicted of planting a bomb that killed two Oregon police officers in 2008 are accusing the trial judge of two dozen errors as they seek to overturn the verdict against Bruce Turnidge, toss out his death sentence and win a new trial.

The Oregonian reports that in a 216-page brief, the lawyers preview the oral arguments they’re scheduled to present Thursday before the Oregon Supreme Court in Salem.

They say Marion County Circuit Judge Thomas Hart should never have allowed jurors to hear about Turnidge’s anti-government views. They also say the judge failed to intervene when a prosecutor told jurors to impose the death penalty as the only option to “silence Bruce Turnidge’s beliefs and his mind.”

State Justice Department lawyers say Turnidge’s well-known views supported his ultimate motive.

Turnidge and his son, Joshua Turnidge, are on death row, convicted in a Woodburn bank explosion that killed an Oregon State Police bomb technician and a Woodburn police lieutenant. It also wounded Woodburn’s police chief.

A similar high court appeal hearing for Joshua Turnidge hasn’t been scheduled yet.

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