Kanawha County Prosecutor Mark Plants says he plans to seek an indictment in the near future against a Tennessee man who was accidentally released from jail last week.
Jeremy Carter, 33, is back in custody after his arrest Monday night in South Charleston. Carter’s release last Thursday has created some controversy in Kanawha County Circuit Court.
Circuit Judge Carrie Webster dismissed part of Carter’s case when she was clearing her docket recently. Circuit Clerk Cathy Gatson’s staff followed procedure which resulted in Carter being released.
Plants won’t waste time going to the grand jury on an attempted kidnapping charge.
“We’ll move forward with the prosecution based on the evidence and present the evidence to the grand jury and if they return an indictment we’ll move forward to arraignment and eventually to trial,” Plants told 58WCHS Tuesday.
Carter was arrested last Oct. after allegedly trying to take a child from a stroller in downtown South Charleston.
Plants says he’s glad Carter was caught before he could hurt anyone else.
“I am surprised but I had full faith in law enforcement. He definitely was a potential danger to Kanawha County,” Prosecutor Plants.
Judge Webster, who originally took responsibility for the release only to change her mind two days later and blame the circuit clerk’s office, says she’s interested in discussing the current procedure on how cases are dismissed. Plants says he trusts Cathy Gatson and her staff on how the situation was handled but he’ll talk about it.
“I think everybody would be interested in sitting down and improve on the system, but at the end of the day, at this point, it looks like the clerk did exactly what the order said to do,” Plants said.
PREVIOUS The man accidentally released last week by a Kanawha County Circuit judge is back in police custody.
South Charleston police say accused kidnapper Jeremy Carter was arrested around 6 p.m. Monday at a house on Riverside Drive in South Charleston after receiving a tip.
But as Carter finds himself back behind bars, questions remain into why he was released last Thursday to begin with.
Kanawha County Circuit Clerk Cathy Gatson says her office followed procedure last week when it processed the jail release form for Carter.
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Carrie Webster originally took the blame for Carter’s release after her decision to dismiss his case but Webster has since said she didn’t dismiss the felony charge of the case and the circuit clerk’s office misinterpreted the action she took.
(Read Judge Webster’s statement here.)
(Read official court document in Carter case here.)
Circuit Clerk Gatson disagreed Monday when she spoke with MetroNews.
“I do not believe that this office misconducted itself at any time,” Gatson said. “Could there be more precise procedures or some discussion moving forward to preclude this from happening? Yes, that certainly seems to be warranted but I do not believe my office misconducted itself in any way.”
Gatson says criminal cases are given various case numbers during the life of the case. She says when judges decide to dismiss a case they have the county prosecutor’s office prepare the order, which fully vets the decision. She says Judge Webster didn’t do that.
“She was attempting to clear cases from her docket and prepared the dismissal orders exclusive of the prosecutor’s office, that’s my understanding,” Gatson said.
Judge Webster originally took the blame when she spoke with the Charleston Gazette last Friday.
“I’m very upset,” said Webster to the Gazette. “I own that, is what I mean. It is extraordinarily regretful that it happened, and it shouldn’t have happened.”
But Webster had backtracked by Sunday night when she put out a three-page statement explaining what had happened.
“I inadvertently took responsibility for the mistaken release of Jeremy Carter,” Webster said.
Webster says she dismissed a case where Carter’s attorney had asked for a psychiatric evaluation, not the attempted kidnapping charges.
The judge went on to say, “It is abundantly clear that the Court DID NOT enter an order directing dismissal of 12-F -2685 or authorizing Mr. Carter’s release on that charge. It is equally clear that his release resulted from a document other than the Dismissal Order, and was specifically authorized by someone other than the underlying judge.”
Webster’s dismissal removed the bond that was holding Carter and he was released from the South Central Regional Jail last Thursday.
South Charleston Police Chief Brad Rinehart says Carter was arrested last Oct. after trying to take a child from a stroller near the South Charleston Indian Mound.
“We had some issues at the time of the arrest,” the chief said. “He became pretty violent when he was advised of what he was charged with. He had to be pepper sprayed at that time.”
Several agencies had been searching for Carter since his unintentional release.
Carter’s case had already been bound over to a grand jury and could be indicted this spring.