A Republican from the Second District, the thirty-nine year old lawyer and judge lived in Spokane Falls.
Born in Missouri in 1850, Turner came to Washington in 1884 where he became an associate justice of the territorial court. He had been a member of the national Republican conventions of 1876, 1880 and 1884. He was opposed for election to the Convention by the Northern Pacific Railway, the Knights of Labor, and women's Sufferage and Prohibition groups, but was elected by a three hundred majority.
Turner served on the following committees: Judicial Department, chairman; Harbors, Rivers, Tidewaters and Navigable Streams; State Medicine and Public Health.