Defense lawyers for a man accused of shooting a pastor in church said their top priority after a judge’s ruling to throw out a second-degree murder charge is getting their client out of jail.

Not so fast, District Attorney John DeRosier said.

Woodrow Karey, 55, reportedly shot and killed Ronald Harris, 53, on Sept. 27, 2013, during a Friday night revival service at Tabernacle of Praise Worship Center on Deshotel Lane.

On Nov. 14, 2013, a grand jury weighed charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter, opting for the lesser charge of manslaughter. A second grand jury, on June 26, returned an indictment of second-degree murder.

Defense attorneys Adam Johnson and Todd Clemons claimed that when prosecutors took the case back to a second grand jury, they reneged on an agreement in which the defense would provide names of witnesses and information about their testimony. Johnson and Clemons asked Judge Clayton Davis to throw out the second indictment; on Tuesday, the judge did so.

Since the manslaughter charge was dismissed after the second indictment, Johnson and Clemons said no charge is pending and Karey should be released from jail.

Johnson said he went Tuesday evening to the Calcasieu Correctional Center, where Karey is being held, in an attempt to have Karey released, but was told that Davis had ordered Karey held.

“Our goal now is to get our client out of jail,” Clemons said. “Right now, he has no charges pending and he doesn’t have a bond, so there’s no legal reason for him to be in the correctional center.”

“That simply is not going to happen right now,” DeRosier said. “We obviously do not agree with the judge’s ruling. I understand the judge wanted to get this case moving. We have 30 days within which to appeal this ruling, and we are contemplating that while we speak.”

Davis’ decision is “not a final ruling,” prosecutor Carla Sigler wrote in a court filing. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to appeal the decision or file a charge of manslaughter against Karey.

“He still has a charge against him as we sit here right now,” DeRosier said. “That charge is second-degree murder. The judge has said that we have to prosecute him for something other than second-degree murder and we have 30 days within which to appeal that. As long as that 30 days is in existence, he stays where he is.”

Clemons and Johnson claim that prosecutors wanted to use defense witnesses in the grand jury to help move the case toward a manslaughter indictment, but went to a second grand jury under pressure from Harris’ family.

In his ruling, Davis said that by providing the witnesses, Karey “gave up rights that he would otherwise have withheld to achieve what was at the time a joint goal.”

DeRosier said, though, that the case was returned to a grand jury because of “substantial, additional” evidence.

“At no time did we ever agree not to go back to any grand jury or the grand jury if we got additional information,” DeRosier said. “We did not need any information that the defense had. The defense came to us and requested to present witnesses.

“The only promise that was made is that they could bring whatever witnesses they wanted and the grand jury was going to do what it was going to do, just like any grand jury does. We never ever had a discussion about whether it could go back to a grand jury if we had additional evidence.”

(MGNonline)