Billy Ray Turner’s efforts to overturn sentencing will move into 2025

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Efforts to overturn Billy Ray Turner’s sentencing will move into the new year.

Turner was convicted in 2022 for the first-degree murder of NBA star Lorenzen Wright.

He is also convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.

Turner has several more post-conviction hearings ahead, but he will likely not return to Shelby County Court for the next one, which is set for January.

Judge Lee Coffee explained why:

“It costs Shelby County about $150 a day to house state prisoners... Mr. Turner would probably not want to be a guest in Shelby County while this case is pending, so we’ve not entered an order to bring Mr. Turner back to this setting, we’ll probably not have him here on that January 16 date.”

Turner is currently serving a life sentence plus additional years at the Turney Center in Olney, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville.

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