ESPN joins other outlets fighting proposed media blackout in Bryan Pata murder retrial

ESPN, NBCUniversal, and the Miami Herald‘s parent company filed a joint motion Thursday opposing a Florida judge’s suggestion that she could restrict media access and impose a gag order in the retrial of Rashaun Jones, the former Miami Hurricanes player accused of killing teammate Bryan Pata in 2006.

The motion, filed ahead of a Monday hearing before 11th Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda, leans on decades of case law holding that criminal trials belong open to the public and that judges can’t impose blanket restrictions on what participants say outside the courtroom. Jones’ own defense team filed a separate motion the day before, making the same argument from the other side, stating that Jones “does not seek closure and affirmatively opposes it” and “welcomes the scrutiny of the press as to all aspects of this case.”

Miranda originally set to preside over Jones’ retrial in May, but pushed it to September after a run of new problems piled up all at once, which included an internal-affairs investigation into lead detective Juan Segovia, who allegedly ran an anonymous Instagram account commenting on the case during the first trial, including one post calling Jones “guilty as sin,” as well as a Florida Bar misconduct complaint against the prosecutor who tried that case.

At a June 17 hearing, Miranda cited “results that have occurred from the social media in this case” and people “disclosing things that shouldn’t be disclosed” as reasons for floating a gag order and possible closure, according to ESPN.

That February trial, which ended in Jones’ favor by way of a hung jury, came more than five years after ESPN’s own investigative team helped reopen a case that had gone cold for a decade and a half. The network’s Enterprise and Investigative Unit sued Miami-Dade police for records and turned its findings into Murder at The U, a seven-part 30 for 30 podcast hosted by reporter Paula Lavigne that traces the case from Pata’s 2006 killing through Jones’ 2021 arrest, timed to premiere just before the original trial date this February.

ESPN’s involvement in this case goes well beyond the podcast. Last September, with Jones’ trial then scheduled for October, Lavigne and Dan Arruda tracked down Paul Conner, a key eyewitness whom prosecutors had told Judge Miranda was dead. Conner, the only person who claimed to have seen someone leaving the scene the night Pata was killed, was very much alive in a Louisville, Kentucky, apartment when ESPN knocked on his door.

Monday’s hearing will determine whether that same reporting, and any future coverage of the retrial, continues under normal open-court conditions or under restrictions neither side in the case says it wants.