Judge in Megan McDonald murder trial denies defense motion, won't leave case
GOSHEN – Edward Holley wasn’t there to see it — there were problems transporting him from the county jail. But his attorneys failed in all but one respect Monday to convince Orange County Judge Hyun Chin Kim that their pre-trial motions should be granted, including one that she step aside.
Holley faces 25 years to life in the 2003 bludgeoning death of 20-year-old Megan McDonald, with whom he had had a physical relationship. Orange County’s stubbornest cold case bedeviled investigators for 20 years before Holley was arrested in April 2023. A grand jury indicted him in January 2024 on a single second-degree-murder charge.
Judge Kim permitted one defense motion to survive, involving a call for a “Huntley hearing” to determine if Holley’s statements to law enforcement can be used against him at trial. All others were denied, including, apparently, a request for the judge to recuse herself.
(The defense motions, and the prosecution’s response, while public records, were not yet available for review by reporters. Lynn McKelvey, the chief court clerk, said Monday that because Holley’s trial is a “paper case,” documents are not available electronically and there would be a lag of up to 48 hours before those documents would be available.)
It was Kim who first raised the issue of her principal court attorney, Karen Edelman-Reyes, just weeks after she got the case. Kim told lawyers for both sides on Feb. 21 that Edelman-Reyes had worked for the Orange County District Attorney's office from 2008 to 2014. The judge asked both sides if that presented any concerns for them. Defense attorney Paul N. Weber said at the time only that he would like Edelman-Reyes insulated from the case.
It appears that the issue resurfaced in the pre-trial motions, with Weber asking Kim to remove herself from the case.
“I am not recusing myself in this case,” Kim said Monday, “but I have decided to screen off my principal law clerk. I believe that that would address everybody's concerns.”
Defense seeking 'Frye hearings' on techniques used by two firms
Holley’s defense team, led by Weber, said they would be looking for “Frye hearings” when it came to the testimony and evidence from two firms — Cybergenetics and CyberCheck — one dealing with identifying DNA, the other with establishing the location of a cellphone signal. A Frye hearing doesn’t challenge the testimony, only the scientific techniques used and if they are accepted by the industry.
When the defense said they had been given a 775-page PDF document with Cybergenetics information within the past month and had not the time to review it fully, the judge pushed back, noting that a Cybergenetics witness had been part of the grand jury review.
Laura Murphy, co-counsel to special prosecutor Julia B. Cornachio, said the full Cybergenetics report was given to the defense in October 2023 and that the new PDF was merely a repackaging to add graphs and charts. Murphy said the repackaging and review was costly to Orange County, so she and Cornachio delayed ordering it until after the indictment.
As for CyberCheck, Murphy said the company was part of the State Police investigation but was not included in the presentation given to the grand jury upon which the indictment was secured. She said that the prosecution had no intention of invoking CyberCheck in the case, but remained “open-minded” to changing that decision, in which case, prosecutors would alert the defense.
With that, Kim set Holley's next appearance for 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 5, when the Huntley hearing would be held, with witnesses called. The trial would be at some date after that.
Reach Peter D. Kramer at pkramer@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Megan McDonald murder: Judge denies defense motions, will stay on case
