State v. Turner

NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.
UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL
AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE
ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION ONE

STATE OF ARIZONA, Respondent,

v.

STEVEN LEE TURNER, Petitioner.

No. 1 CA-CR 25-0571 PRPC
FILED 07-01-2026

Petition for Review from the Superior Court in Maricopa County
No. CR 1995-006212
The Honorable Chuck Whitehead, Judge

REVIEW GRANTED; RELIEF DENIED

COUNSEL

Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Phoenix
By Robert E. Prather
Counsel for Respondent

Ortega & Ortega PLLC, Phoenix
By Alane M. Ortega
Counsel for Petitioner

STATE v. TURNER
Decision of the Court

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judge Kent E. Cattani delivered the decision of the Court, in which
Presiding Judge Samuel A. Thumma and Judge Andrew J. Becke joined.

C A T T A N I, Judge:

¶1 Steven Lee Turner petitions for review of the superior court’s
dismissal of his petition for post-conviction relief (“PCR”) filed under
Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure (“Rule”) 32. We grant review but deny
relief.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 In 1995, the victim’s body was discovered in a field beside an
irrigation ditch. She had been shot multiple times, including three times in
the head. Police interviewed Turner about the crime a month later. He
admitting seeing the victim the day before her body was found but denied
killing her. Several days after Turner’s interview, his jail cellmate, C.D.,
told police that Turner had confessed to a murder.

¶3 The State charged Turner with first-degree murder and
kidnapping. At trial, the State’s case was based largely on C.D.’s account
of what Turner had told him: The victim had found two guns belonging to
Turner and tried to sell them back to him. Because the victim had only one
of the guns, Turner and an accomplice forced the victim into the backseat
of Turner’s car and went looking for the person who had the second gun.
Unable to find that person, Turner drove to a field and ordered the victim
out of the car. The victim saw that Turner had a gun and began to run.
Turner then shot the victim, and when she fell to the ground and began
crawling, Turner knelt and shot her three more times. Turner dragged her
body into a gully, tossed the gun into a dumpster, and later burned his
clothes. According to C.D., Turner said he returned to the site shortly after
the shooting and “looked up under [the victim] to see if he had dropped his
[gun] clip up under her” but later found the clip in his car.

¶4 In his defense, Turner emphasized that no physical evidence
or eyewitness testimony linked him to the crimes. He also stressed C.D.’s
incentive to act as an informant and the possibility that C.D. fabricated the
“confession” based on publicly available information.

2

STATE v. TURNER
Decision of the Court

¶5 A jury found Turner guilty as charged, and this court
affirmed his convictions and sentences on appeal. State v. Turner, 1 CA-CR
97-0401 (Ariz. App. Apr. 30, 1998) (mem. decision). Later that year, Turner
filed a PCR notice that the superior court dismissed as untimely.

¶6 In 2003, Turner petitioned for post-conviction DNA testing
under A.R.S. § 13-4240. The petition was not addressed until 2020; the
reason for this delay is not apparent from the record. At that time, the court
granted Turner’s request for DNA testing of (1) bloodstains inside Turner’s
vehicle, (2) bloodstains on the victim’s clothing, and (3) all other items
containing DNA evidence collected from Turner’s car or the victim.

¶7 After receiving the results, Turner petitioned for relief based
on newly discovered evidence under Rule 32.1(e) and ineffective assistance
of counsel (“IAC”) under Rule 32.1(a).1 Turner noted that the DNA results
showed (1) no victim DNA on samples collected from Turner’s vehicle, (2)
an exclusion of Turner’s DNA from the vast majority of samples collected
from the victim’s clothing (t-shirt, shorts, and bra), (3) at best inconclusive
results regarding the presence of Turner’s DNA on three samples from the
victim’s clothing, and (4) an exclusion of Turner’s DNA from other samples
tested, including from a semen stain on the victim’s shorts and hairs found
in her hand and on her clothes. Turner thus asserted that this DNA
evidence refuted trial testimony that was already unreliable and thus, if
known at the time of trial, probably would have changed the verdict.
Turner further argued that his trial attorney’s failure to seek independent
DNA testing of the samples before trial established IAC.

¶8 After a two-day evidentiary hearing including expert
testimony interpreting the DNA results, the superior court denied relief.
The court concluded that Turner failed to show a reasonable probability he
would not have been convicted had the DNA evidence been presented at
trial and thus had not shown grounds for relief based on newly discovered
evidence. Because the DNA evidence was not exculpatory, Turner’s trial

1 Turner’s original petition raised only the Rule 32.1(e) claim, but he
sought leave to add the IAC claim, urging that this claim should be
permitted because his 1998 PCR notice was improperly dismissed as
untimely even though it was in fact timely filed within 30 days after the
Arizona Supreme Court denied his petition for review. See Ariz. R. Crim.
P. 32.4(a) (1998). The superior court granted leave to amend, and Turner’s
amended petition is the operative pleading.

3

STATE v. TURNER
Decision of the Court

attorney’s failure to obtain the evidence was neither deficient nor
prejudicial, undermining his IAC claim.

¶9 This timely petition for review followed.

DISCUSSION

¶10 We review the superior court’s ruling on a PCR petition for
an abuse of discretion, a category that includes errors of law, failure to
“adequately investigate the facts necessary to support its decision,” or
factual findings that are “clearly erroneous.” State v. Pandeli, 242 Ariz. 175,
180, ¶¶ 3–4 (2017). Turner argues the superior court here erred by not
considering relevant facts and by misapplying the law.

¶11 To merit relief based on newly discovered material facts,
Turner was required to show “those facts probably would have changed
the judgment or sentence.” Ariz. R. Crim. P. 32.1(e). Because the trial
evidence here showed limited physical contact between Turner and the
victim, the superior court reasonably concluded that the absence of
Turner’s DNA on the victim’s t-shirt, shorts, and bra or on hair and semen
found on her person was unlikely to have affected the jury’s determination
of guilt. Cf. State v. Hess, 231 Ariz. 80, 82–83, ¶¶ 5, 12 (App. 2012)
(concluding that the exclusion of defendant’s DNA from tested samples
was unlikely to affect the verdict because there was little evidence
defendant had contact with the sampled areas). Trial testimony that Turner
slapped the victim’s face or dragged her body does not establish or suggest
that Turner touched her clothing where the DNA samples were collected.
And no trial evidence showed sexual contact between the two. Even if
Turner moved the victim to see if the gun clip was underneath her, he could
have done so without touching her clothing.

¶12 Likewise, the absence of the victim’s DNA in samples taken
from Turner’s car does not establish a reasonable probability of a different
verdict. The samples were taken from only limited portions of the
backseat—pieces of the center front and left corner seat covers and a piece
of upholstery from the left rear panel below the passenger-side window.
More importantly, the samples were collected from bloodstained areas, and
there was no evidence the victim was bleeding in the car; Turner himself
later acknowledged the blood predictably belonged to him because he had
been shot in the vehicle.

¶13 Turner argues the DNA evidence would have further
undermined C.D.’s testimony, a lynchpin of the State’s case and, in Turner’s
view, already unreliable. But the discrepancies in C.D.’s account were

4

STATE v. TURNER
Decision of the Court

already apparent from other trial evidence. And defense counsel
emphasized those discrepancies at trial. Given the limited probability that
Turner’s DNA would be found on the victim’s clothing or the victim’s DNA
in the samples from Turner’s car and the fact that the jurors were already
aware of the “inconsistencies and inaccuracies” on which Turner now
relies, the DNA results were unlikely to meaningfully change the jury’s
assessment of C.D.’s credibility.

¶14 Turner asserts the court failed to adequately consider the facts
underlying its decision because it did not review or rely on the trial
transcripts. See Pandeli, 242 Ariz. at 180, ¶ 4. But the court expressly relied
on the facts set forth in Turner’s petition and in this court’s decision on
direct appeal, and Turner does not contend that those facts were inaccurate
or misstated. Moreover, our independent review of the trial record
confirms the superior court’s assessment. See State v. Roseberry, 237 Ariz.
507, 508, ¶ 7 (2015) (“We will affirm a trial court’s decision [denying post-
conviction relief] if it is legally correct for any reason.”).

¶15 Turner further argues that the superior court misapplied the
law by requiring proof of innocence to prevail on his newly discovered
evidence claim and by relying on inapposite case law. But the court recited
the correct standard for a newly discovered evidence claim. Even if the
court referenced innocence (“the absence of [Turner’s] DNA does not mean
he did not kill the victim”), its analysis focused on whether the DNA results
likely would have changed the verdict, and our review supports its finding
that Turner did not show a reasonable probability of a different outcome.
See id. Similarly, the court did not err by citing cases in which forensic
results did not exculpate the defendant because those cases (even if
somewhat factually distinct) demonstrated inadequacy of new DNA
evidence under sufficiently similar circumstances.

¶16 To the extent Turner also challenges dismissal of his IAC
claim premised on trial counsel’s failure to seek DNA testing, we likewise
deny relief. Not least because independent testing risked generating results
that could inculpate Turner, the decision not to seek testing and instead to
emphasize the State’s failure to present scientific evidence connecting
Turner to the crimes was not unreasonable. See Strickland v. Washington, 466
U.S. 668, 691 (1984) (observing that an attorney’s decision not to investigate
is “reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional
judgments support the limitations on investigation”). Further, Turner has
not shown prejudice because, as described above, the DNA results were
unlikely to have impacted the jury’s verdict. See id. at 694.

5

STATE v. TURNER
Decision of the Court

CONCLUSION

¶17 We grant review but deny relief.

MATTHEW J. MARTIN • Clerk of the Court
FILED: JR

6