
Breaking News: Kaitlyn Conley Conviction Overturned
Breaking News: A New York State appellate court has overturned the first-degree manslaughter conviction of Kaitlyn Conley in regards to the death of her boss Mary Louise Yoder. Conley had been sentenced to 23-years in prison.
As a result, Conley will be released from prison. The Oneida County District Attorney's office is expected to retain the option to retry the case.
The appeal was based on evidence that was inadmissible in the first trial from Conley's personal cell phone, but was inadvertently used in the second trial. According to the decision, the warrant issued for the seizure of Conley's cellphone didn't permit the prosecution from searching the contents of her phone.
It is hereby ORDERED that the order so appealed from is unanimously reversed on the law, the motion is granted, the judgment of conviction is vacated, and count 1 of the indictment is dismissed without prejudice to the People to re-present any appropriate chargewith respect to such dismissed count to another grand jury. -Decision
In the decision, the appellate court ruled that Conley's first lawyer, Christopher Pelli provided ineffective counsel because he failed to challenged the evidence obtained by the prosecution from. Conley's cellphone.
During the course of its investigation into Yoder’s death, the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) obtained a warrant authorizing it to “seize” defendant’s cell phone and, “without unnecessary delay, return it to th[e] [c]ourt.” OCSO thereafter seized defendant’s cell phone but, rather than return it to the warrant-issuing court, delivered it to a cybersecurity and forensics center, where a forensic examination and memory extraction was conducted. The examination revealed, inter alia, that the words “poison” and “colchicine” showed up multiple times in the cell phone’s user dictionary, and that an email account used to acquire colchicine had been logged into on the cell phone.
The information extracted from the cell phone was then used to further OCSO’s investigation, including eliciting defendant’s admission that she had purchased a prepaid debit card that had been used to acquire colchicine through an online chemical vendor. Defendant was-2- 941 KA 24-00381 subsequently indicted for, inter alia, murder in the second degree (Penal Law § 125.25 [1]) for intentionally causing Yoder’s death. Defendant’s first trial ended in a hung jury. In the second trial, the jury found defendant not guilty of murder in the second degree and guilty of manslaughter in the first degree, which had been submitted to the jury as a lesser included offense of murder in the second degree. - Decision
Conley has stated from the beginning during her initial arrest that she is innocent. Defendant thereafter brought a CPL 440.10 (1) (h) motion contending that she was denied effective assistance of counsel under the Federal and New York State Constitutions by, inter alia, defense counsels’ failure to move to suppress evidence obtained through the search of her cell phone on the ground that the search exceeded the scope of the warrant and the warrant was facially invalid for lack of particularity. County Court, following a hearing, denied defendant’s motion. Defendant now appeals, and we reverse. - Decision
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