The Oneida County District Attorney’s Office has officially filed an appeal to Oneida County Supreme Court Judge Bernadette Clark’s decision to seal the evidence in the Kaitlyn Conley case.
According to documents obtained by the Observer-Dispatch, Oneida County District Attorney Todd Carville filed the motion to appeal on Aug. 18, asking to overturn the motion to seal the record of the Conley case, which was sealed Feb. 4.
The Observer-Dispatch reached out to the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office for comment, but did not receive a reply in time for publication.
The Kaitlyn Conley case
Conley, 31, formerly of Sauquoit, was tried twice in 2017 for second-degree murder for the July 2015 poisoning death of her employer, Whitesboro chiropractor Mary Yoder.
The first trial ended in a hung jury; jurors in the second trial found her guilty of first-degree manslaughter. However, Conley then filed for the right to appeal and was granted.
Conley said in her appeal motion that the attorney in the first case did not rightfully challenge the seizure and search of Conley’s phone and a laptop belonging to Adam Yoder, Conley’s ex-boyfriend and Mary Yoder’s son, which had a backup of Conley’s phone on it.
The Fourth Department ruled in Conley’s favor, saying, “Indiscriminate searches pursuant to general warrants were the immediate evils that motivated the framing and adoption of the Fourth Amendment.”
Conley’s conviction was vacated on Jan. 31, 2025.
After Conley’s conviction was vacated, she appeared in court on Feb. 4 for a hearing to release her from custody, where a motion was made by the defense to seal her records.
When records are sealed in this way, they can’t be used in future court cases. However, the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office didn’t object.
On May 28, the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office filed, on behalf of the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office, an application to unseal the records from the case.
The reasoning stated was the records were needed to assist the sheriff’s office in its “extensive ongoing investigation into the death of Mary Yoder.”
On June 12, the decision to unseal Conley’s records was denied due to there being no ongoing investigation and no investigator assigned to investigate Mary Yoder’s death, according to Oneida County Supreme Court documents.
“Lt. Richard Paul’s testimony that there is no current investigator of the OCSO assigned to investigator Mary Yoder’s death confirms the absence of any new or ongoing investigatory developments in this case,” Judge Clark wrote in the decision. “As Lt. Richard Paul has made clear, all he meant by an investigation ongoing is that the case is being presented to the grand jury.”
On June 25, Oneida County District Attorney Todd Carville filed a motion for Judge Clark to recuse herself in the Conley case, citing “the court’s demeanor and responses,” a continued failure to remedy a ruling, and comments made at a December holiday party that indicated judicial bias.
The case so far
Clark heard arguments for the motion to recusal on Aug. 7 and denied she had made those statements and said she handled the case without bias.
Swartz argued that Conley’s case was entitled to automatic sealing, not a function of Clark’s court, and that it was the duty of the Oneida County District Attorney’s Office to object to the sealing.
In court documents related to the sealing, Carville said the people had no opportunity to file an objection to the sealing of evidence, with “…the requisite five days notice as they were put on notice the day the order was executed.”
“He does not have the ability to ask this court to unseal,” she said. “He consented to sealing on Feb. 4.”
Additionally, Swartz stated the case before Clark, The People v. Kaitlyn Conley, didn’t exist. As of now, there is no active case or investigation against Conley, which was corroborated in recently released court documents.
Clark has yet to issue a decision on Carville’s motion for her to recuse herself from the Conley case.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Oneida County DA files appeal in Conley case and sealed evidence
Reporting by Casey Pritchard, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
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