Oregon Supreme Court upholds death sentences in Woodburn bank bombing
SALEM, Ore. -- The Oregon Supreme Court unanimously upheld the death penalty for two men who set off a bomb at a Woodburn bank in 2008, killing two people and injuring two others.
Bruce Turnidge, 63, and his son, Joshua Turnidge, 38, are on Oregon's death row after they were convicted in 2010. The explosion killed state police bomb technician William Hakim and Woodburn Police Capt. Tom Tennant.
Woodburn's police chief, Scott Russell, lost a leg, and a bank employee was wounded.
The Turnidges planned a bank robbery, built the bomb, left it outside the West Coast Bank and called in a bomb threat. Authorities found the device and brought it into the bank, where it went off.
While prosecutors argued at the time that a stray radio wave detonated the bomb, Turnidge's attorneys said a bomb tech inadvertently set it off. They said Turnidge never intended to kill anyone in the bombing, so he shouldn't be held responsible for the deaths caused by the explosion.
They also argued in 2015 that the judge in the 2010 trial made a total of 24 errors. Among them, the lawyers claimed the judge should not have allowed testimony about the Turnidges' anti-government views.
The case went to the state's high court, and on Thursday Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau announced that the court affirmed the convictions and death sentences for the aggravated murders of Capt. Tennant and Trooper Hakim.
The court also upheld the attempted aggravated murder and assault charges in connection with the injured victims.
"Today's decision reinforces the justice and fairness of the trial process and of the jury's verdicts and sentences," Beglau said Thursday.
http://www.kgw.com/news/crime/oregon...bing/173723531
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