Updated: 7 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An unusual request prompted a judge to delay the trial of a Philadelphia man accused of killing the son of a city police officer more than two years ago.
After the jury was selected, Levar Turner’s defense attorney emailed Judge Diana Anhalt, writing he was not fully prepared for trial and wanted to bring another attorney on board to help.
The attorney, Evan Hughes, told Anhalt that Turner and his family also wanted a second lawyer on the case because the prosecution has two.
Turner, 25, faces murder, robbery and conspiracy charges for the shooting death of 24-year-old Hyram Hill on Jan. 24, 2022, outside Maria Mini Mart along North Broad Street.
Authorities say Turner is one of two gunmen involved. He faces first- and second-degree murder charges, for which conviction carries an automatic life sentence. The other gunman has not been arrested or identified.
Surveillance video shows Hill pulling his car over and entering the store around 5 a.m. There, he interacts with two men, who then seemingly rob him and open fire on him.
Police released that video as well as the body camera footage from an officer who said he encountered Turner and the other shooter 15 minutes prior. Investigators believe Turner and the other suspect were involved in another domestic altercation shortly before the shooting.
Days after releasing the footage to the public, Turner surrendered to police and was charged. Prosecutors offered Turner a plea deal to third-degree murder, robbery and conspiracy — he might have been looking at about a decade to 40 years behind bars — but he declined that agreement.
The judge said she struggled with the request because either way it could hurt Turner’s chance to have a fair trial.
She said, on one-hand, the new attorney was hired less than 24 hours before the trial was supposed to begin and would not have had time to review the entire file — and on the other hand, if she let the trial move forward and Turner was convicted, he would likely have cause to claim ineffective assistance of counsel.
Prosecutors said they had never heard of such an addition so late in the process.
Hughes told the judge the defense wanted the jury that was picked — adding that he didn’t see the problem with a late addition to the case.
Prosecutors said they had never heard of such an addition so late in the process. In the end, the judge moved the trial up to August.
Hill was the son of longtime Philadelphia Police Officer Edwenna Ferguson. At a vigil shortly after his death, she and dozens of others remembered him as a hardworking man who had no run-ins with the law. He died before the birth of his daughter.