A Florida judge heard arguments Wednesday over whether she should issue a gag order for attorneys -- and even ban media coverage -- during the retrial of a former University of Miami football player accused of murdering his teammate 20 years ago.
After a trial earlier this year ended in a hung jury, Rashaun Jones is scheduled to go back to trial on Sept. 14, five years after he was arrested and charged with the Nov. 7, 2006, murder of Miami teammate Bryan Pata, who was shot in the head outside his apartment building after practice.
Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda did not rule after the daylong hearing. The next scheduled hearing in the case is Aug. 7.
The judge said she was concerned about the accuracy of legal analysis being presented in the news and on social media. She also expressed her concern about the public learning from the media about evidence she rules to be inadmissible at trial. Miranda did not cite specific media reports, and instead alluded to instances that she said misrepresented the facts of the case.
"And a lot of the information that I'm referring to is not solely limited to the media's initial dissemination on the 6 o' clock news or the 5 o' clock news," Miranda said. "It's then a compilation of what is presented ... on social media that then goes on a whole different route and invites commentary and gives legal analysis and explanation that may not be accurate."
She also said if the public is "going to be explained something by an authoritative representative, it should be someone who has the legal knowledge or legal basis to make those types of announcements to the public."
The judge, in referencing "extrajudicial drama for the courtroom" among attorneys during the first trial, also said media members "should only be recording while the jury is here and while presentation of evidence is being played ... this isn't a Kardashian show and this isn't a media circus."
Miranda proposed possibly limiting dissemination of testimony until two weeks after the retrial ends.
Pata's murder has been the subject of local and national media coverage, including an ABC 20/20 episode and an ESPN 30 for 30 podcast, which included a review of documents and interviews that revealed errors in the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office investigation and questioned actions of the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office.
During a previous hearing, Miranda raised the possibility of restricting media access and imposing a gag order, and earlier this month, ESPN; NBCUniversal Media, which owns NBC6 South Florida; and McClatchy Company, publisher of the Miami Herald, filed a motion opposing such orders.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office had not indicated a position on either. Attorneys for Jones filed a motion opposing the restrictions, and during the Wednesday hearing, attorney Christian Maroni said the "answer is more speech, not less speech."
"Press coverage of trials is meant for the purpose of allowing scrutiny. It's allowing them to scrutinize what is going on in a public event," he said. "To the extent that the court's concern is the process becoming a circus or becoming questioned, that's what the First Amendment is for."
Miranda said she was concerned that media reports on how police investigate a case might not account for what officers may or may not do, and "it might make it appear to the person who doesn't understand that police officers have failed to do something, but police officers need warrants to gather some information."
She also said the public might not understand what the courts allow to be used as evidence.
Miranda referenced "a fight that might have happened at the beach months before" Pata's killing as an example of evidence she did not allow at trial that had been in the media and subject to public speculation, but she did not provide further details.
That description most closely matches a fight that Pata, his brother and some friends were involved in at a Miami nightclub in mid-2006 with at least one known gang member, and the fight ended with one adversary yelling, "We are going to get you!" Details of the fight were in the original police report and have been included in multiple media stories that date back to shortly after the 2006 killing.
Daniela Abratt-Cohen, an attorney representing ESPN and other media outlets, said journalists should be able to report on what happens in the courtroom outside of a jury, "because it speaks to how the judicial process functions."
The public should know why certain evidence is excluded or included in a trial and why certain arguments are made, Abratt-Cohen said.
"Keeping proceedings open is what's going to allow people to get accurate information, to hear it directly from the court, directly from the parties, when they can listen to it for themselves," she said.
Miranda said when the media has someone give a legal opinion on "the information and its legitimacy, shouldn't they be held responsible for that opinion if it's inaccurate?"
The judge did not offer specifics on any news report she might be referencing. Abratt-Cohen said she was not aware of any such incident but added that one article misstating something would not justify or meet the legal burden to close proceedings.
Maroni and Abratt-Cohen said if the judge was concerned about media coverage influencing jurors that there were less "drastic" measures such as cautioning the jury to consider only testimony in the courtroom and to avoid media during the trial, or even jury sequestration.
Miranda also referred to instances of "inappropriate, unprofessional and contemptuous" behavior by attorneys in the courtroom -- outside the presence of the jury -- that she said media outlets "highlighted because it was sensational."
And she complained about attorneys, specifically defense counsel, speaking to the media.
"If the statement that's inadmissible to a jury is made outside of the courtroom, it's still inadmissible and it's inappropriate," she said.
Miranda also spoke about the effect of information spreading on social media, and she cited a YouTube account -- not affiliated with any media outlet -- that posted audio from a deposition as one of her reasons for wanting to restrict public access to proceedings and evidence.
The deposition was of George Jones, currently in federal prison, who told attorneys that while he and Rashaun Jones (no relation) were in jail together in Miami, Rashaun Jones confessed to having killed Pata.
Miranda put George Jones' deposition from May 19 under seal after an assistant state attorney indicated Jones feared for his safety for being known as a jailhouse informant. Jones' original statement to investigators from 2022 had been a public record, and he has spoken to ESPN multiple times, including for the podcast released earlier this year and in a conversation after the deposition. He did not testify at the first trial.
Assistant State Attorney Cristina Diamond said she was not opposed to Jones' future testimony being reported on in the media but asked that his face not be shown in any media reports.
Later in the hearing, attorneys argued over George Jones' testimony and whether the state attorney's office had promised him any possible reduction in his federal sentence in exchange for his testimony. Diamond said she had not spoken with anyone from the federal government regarding his sentence and no one has promised him any assistance.
"We have no control over any of this," Diamond said. "He knows we don't, and he's frustrated."
