Karey denied release
Published 9:18 am Thursday, October 23, 2014
A judge in state district court declined a request Wednesday to release a man accused of killing a pastor in church.
Woodrow Karey asked Judge Clayton Davis to release Karey because of delays in bringing him to trial.
Karey is accused of shooting to death Ronald J. Harris at Tabernacle of Praise Worship Center during a Friday night service on Sept. 27, 2013. He reportedly walked into the church, shot Harris, then stood over Harris and shot him again. Karey then reportedly called authorities to turn himself in, telling deputies that Harris raped his wife.
Todd Clemons and Adam Johnson, Karey’s attorneys, filed a speedy trial motion on June 16. After such a motion is filed, a defendant must be brought to trial within 120 days if he is in custody — which Karey is — unless just cause can be found.
Davis ruled that there was just cause for the delay. Prosecutors’ inability to get into Karey’s iPhone was the major cause for the delay. The phone was sent to Apple to be unlocked. “We had to go to Apple; we didn’t have a choice,” prosecutor Cynthia Killingsworth said.
Once the phone was sent to Apple, prosecutors were on the tech giant’s timetable, she said. “We had to kind of wait our turn,” Killingsworth said. “Had we had the passcode, this would not have been a delay. Like I said, it was inevitable, so the delay should not be taxed to us.”
Clemons and Johnson disagreed.
“We have no obligation to give them the passcode,” Clemons said. “I wouldn’t give them the passcode to my phone if I had one on it. I don’t think there’s anybody else in America that would give them the right to their private information, either.”
After the shooting, Sheriff Tony Mancuso said that text messages corroborated to some degree that there was some sort of relationship between Karey’s wife and Harris.
Karey initially turned over the passcode to his iPhone when detective Beth McGee and another detective told Johnson that the Secret Service would inevitably get into the phone. When she returned to Johnson and told him that information was incorrect, Johnson retracted permission.
Authorities then had to send the phone to Apple to have the phone unlocked.
“We have no motivation, nor obligation, nor incentive to cooperate with the DA’s office or the state,” Clemons said. “They’ve got our client locked up and they plan to keep him locked up, so we’re very disappointed that the judge didn’t realize that (Karey’s) constitutional rights are being violated. But hopefully we’ll be able to get the 3rd Circuit to realize that his constitutional rights are being violated, because that’s where we’re going.”
Karey is set to go to trial Feb. 9, a date that will be met, Killingsworth said.
