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Jury decides Scyrene land dispute last week A land dispute was settled by a Clarke County Circuit Court jury last week with jurors ruling in favor of a woman who claimed the 14-plus acres had been in her family since 1913. Jurors were out only 29 minutes before returning a verdict for Kathy Moore Thursday. The trial had started Tuesday. Moore is the wife of Clarke County Sheriff Bobby Moore but the case has been pending since 2002, before Moore was elected. Chester E. Williams and Keith Savoie had sued Moore to decide ownership of the property. Williams is a Clarke County resident and Savoie is from Louisiana and comes to the area to hunt. The acreage, in the Scyrene area, was referred to at times as 14 acres and at other times as 15 acres. The acreage was part of a larger tract of 85 acres purchased by Williams several years ago and later sold to Savoie. Williams had what he claimed was a valid deed to the property. Attorney Ed Turner of Chatom, representing Moore, told jurors not to be concerned about the larger acreage, that Moore only claimed the approximately 14 acres described in her deed. "This is family land and it has been in Kathy Moore's family since nineteen hundred and thirteen when her granddaddy bought it. That deed is right down here in the courthouse," Turner said, pointing downward to the probate office where deeds are recorded. Tatum Turner, Ed Turner's son, also represented Moore. William Poole and Milton Coxwell, attorneys for Williams and Savoie, argued that their clients had valid deeds and that Moore's deed wasn't clear. They said Moore had shown no interest in the property for years and it wasn't until Scotch Lumber Co. was hired to cut timber on the tract that she voiced objections. Coxwell asked, "Where are the corners? Where are the boundaries? The 1913 deed is as ambiguous as it gets. [This] 15 acres is a floating 15 acres if it exists at all." Coxwell said that when Moore's surveyor went to mark the property they couldn't locate it and called attorney Turner. "Just measure off 15 acres and let it drop there," Coxwell said Turner told the surveyor. The trial was a lengthy one with past owners of the property, area residents, landowners and timbermen and others being called to testify. At one point, Circuit Clerk Jay Duke was called down from his seat next to Judge Thomas Baxter to testify as to tax records. Duke was Revenue Commissioner before becoming circuit clerk. The trial was the first in the new courthouse annex where there are two new courtrooms. Other civil cases on last week's dockets for Judge Baxter and Judge Stuart DuBose either settled or were continued.
The Clarke County Grand Jury was also in session last week, hearing presentations for possible criminal indictments.
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