A Mooresville man who had been charged with first-degree murder in the 2021 drive-by shooting that killed 8-year-old Ah’Miyahh Howell has taken an Alford plea and will serve an agreed sentence of 180 to 228 months in Iredell County Superior Court. The deal, entered Monday, cuts his exposure from a potential life sentence and leaves prosecutors to keep pressing cases against the remaining co-defendants.
Plea and sentence
Nasir Cor’Lee Turner, 23, entered an Alford plea to assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury and to conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, according to Iredell Free News. His jury trial had been set to start this week before lawyers reached the agreement in court.
Deal details and prosecutor comment
In exchange for Turner’s guilty pleas, prosecutors agreed to dismiss a first-degree murder charge and a count of discharging a firearm into occupied property, and they dropped three felony drug charges that were filed while Turner was in custody. After Turner admitted there was an aggravating factor in the case, Judge Michael D. Duncan accepted the plea and imposed the agreed sentence. The maximum punishment with enhancements would have been 248 months, and a first-degree murder conviction would have carried a life sentence.
In a statement to Iredell Free News, District Attorney Sarah Kirkman said, “With all plea decisions, my office considers the facts and circumstances surrounding each individual case, including the strength of the evidence, the interest of the victims and the interest of justice.”
The 2021 shooting and arrests
The shooting happened at about 6:56 p.m. on June 28, 2021, when gunfire from a passing vehicle hit children outside a home on Wilson Lee Boulevard. Eight-year-old Ah’Miyahh Howell was killed and her 7-year-old cousin, Tariq Lowery, was wounded, according to ABC News.
Investigators arrested several suspects in July 2021, and local station WCCB reported that Turner, Donnell Ellison and Sayqwon Miller were among those charged. Ellison later appeared in court, while Miller remains in custody at the Iredell County Detention Center.
What an Alford plea means
An Alford plea allows a defendant to plead guilty while still saying they are innocent, while acknowledging that the prosecution likely has enough evidence to win a conviction, according to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. Turner’s plea resolves his case without a jury verdict and leaves prosecutors to either litigate or negotiate the remaining cases involving his co-defendants.
