Ex-Miami Hurricanes player Rashaun Jones is accused of murdering former teammate Bryan Pata
On Wednesday, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Christina Miranda laid out her case for essentially turning Rashaun Jones’ murder retrial into a secret tribunal because she doesn’t like people expressing their First Amendment opinions about the case.
Jones is the 40-year-old ex-Miami Hurricanes football player charged with murdering his former teammate Bryan Pata on Nov. 7, 2006. In March, the first trial ended in a mistrial after a hung jury, a setback for prosecutors who had spent weeks trying to persuade the panel that Jones shot Pata in the head two decades ago primarily based on circumstantial evidence and police testimony. But the result was also a blow to Jones, who remains in custody with his bond recently raised to $650,000 after he was hit with new drug possession charges.
With a September retrial date approaching, Miranda is mulling a gag order for the lawyers on both sides, as well as an additional extraordinary measure to keep a lid on what happens in her courtroom.
She wants to block the right of ordinary citizens and media members to attend and cover court proceedings by closing Jones’ retrial to the public. But before doing so, the judge heard opposing arguments from Jones’ defense team, as well as attorneys representing media outlets, The Miami Herald, NBC6 and ESPN.
Miranda didn’t make a ruling, but she proposed possibly limiting dissemination of testimony until two weeks after the retrial ends. Her rationale for closing the court proceedings is among some disturbing aspects about Jones’ prosecution. Whether you believe Jones is guilty or innocent, he has not gotten a fair shake from the judge since before the first trial.
A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said it does not comment about ongoing criminal cases. The same goes for Miranda, according to a spokesperson for the 11th Judicial Circuit.
Miranda’s desire for a secret tribunal
To close a criminal proceeding, a judge must prove a clear threat to justice, show no other option works, and confirm the closure fixes the problem. Jones’ attorneys filed a motion opposing keeping the public and the media out of the courtroom, as did news outlets The Miami Herald, NBC6 and ESPN.
Miranda didn’t do a good job of justifying why public access is detrimental to Jones’ retrial.
Miami-Dade Judge Christina Miranda
In her packed courtroom on the sixth floor of the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building, Miranda got her robes in a bunch over non-legal professionals going on social media to give their hot takes about trial testimony and evidence, including evidence she rules to be inadmissible at trial and won’t be heard by the jury.
Such content “took on a life of its own in the media” and often what was “published is not accurate reporting,” Miranda said, adding that 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."
In making her argument, Miranda pointed to another recent high-profile criminal trial involving Miami commercial broker George Pino, who was acquitted of manslaughter and vessel homicide for causing the boating death of a 17-year-old teenager, Lucy Fernandez, in 2022. On the first day of Pino’s trial, the judge had to postpone the defense lawyer’s opening argument because his client had an emotional breakdown in front of the jury.
The proceedings were also marred by the judge admonishing Pino’s supporters for coming up to hug him during sidebars, as well as Pino and the lead prosecutor staring each other down at different points of the trial.
Miranda said it was her “duty to not allow [Jones’ retrial] to get out of hand” and “allow it to become a free-for-all.”
“This is not a Kardashian show,” she said; “This is not a media circus.”
Televised court proceedings have become a way of American life since O.J. Simpson murder trial, aka the Trial of the Century. High profile cases are going to get saturated media coverage. So Miranda’s arguments don’t hold water in squelching a Constitutional right to watch our judicial process in action.
"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," Christian Maroni, one of Jones’ lawyers, argued. "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 wants to hide her rulings from public scrutiny
What is really happening is that Miranda doesn’t want her own conduct scrutinized in the media. Before the jury was seated in the first trial, the judge showed bias against Jones with her own words impeaching her in news coverage.
For instance, an ESPN podcast about the trial played a clip of Miranda attempting to scare Jones into accepting the state’s offer of a 15-year prison sentence if he pleaded guilty. If a jury found him guilty, she said:
“That means I have to sentence you to life and that means you don’t get out. That means you only come out in a pine box. I would rather you find some sort of fairness and the victims find some sort of fairness without having to rol the dice on a trial. Do you want time to think about that?”
Jones rejected Miranda’s overture. “Deep down in my heart I know I'm innocent,” he said. “That means I have to go to trial to prove my innocence.”
Miranda also faced criticism for not allowing Jones’ lawyers to present the jury with evidence that suggested investigators failed to explore other possible suspects, including a credible lead developed by a federal law enforcement official.
According to a copy of a Department of Homeland Security investigative report, Special Agent Charles Marable was assigned to track down Wilner Yacinthe, a Haitian migrant in the U.S. illegally who was wanted for narcotics trafficking and murder.
In 2002, Yacinthe was ordered removed from the U.S. due to a narcotics violation, and he was a member of an “extremely violent gang” created in the Miami area and made up of Haitian immigrants both with and without legal status, the investigative report states.
The group maintained close ties to the Caribbean islands and Haiti, building a reputation for committing robbery, burglary, murder, alien smuggling, home invasion robbery, and drug and weapons trafficking. In late July 28, 2009, Marable contacted a Miami-Dade homicide detective and discussed Yacinthe’s alleged role in Pata’s homicide.
Bryan Pata was shot in the head on Nov. 7, 2006 after returning home from football practice.
Marable had interviewed a confidential informant who relayed that he had been drinking and playing dominoes with Yacinthe. According to the report, the witness said Yacinthe began talking about his criminal activity and stated, “I shoot people and get paid,” then, when asked when he last shot someone, replied, “I just shot that kid from the University of Miami. I packed my money and I am ready to go home.”
Yacinthe, 19-years-old at the time, was “a really bad, bad guy,” and said he was involved in extortion, money laundering, weapons sales, and cocaine possession/distribution, the informant told Marable. Then came a key detail: Yacinthe was often armed, usually carrying a .38-caliber revolver in his back pocket. Investigators believe that Pata was murdered with a similar firearm that has never been recovered.
On Dec. 1, 2009, Marable coordinated an attempted capture operation with ICE special agents and seven Miami police officers at Yacinthe’s last known residence in Miami’s Buena Vista West neighborhood. Marable handed out photos of Yacinthe to the officers. One of them said he had seen Yacinthe in the neighborhood “bragging about the crimes he’s committed,” the report states.
When the group arrived at a duplex where Yacinthe supposedly lived, they conducted a sweep of the property and entered the home, but Yacinthe wasn’t there. Two years later, in April, Homeland Security agents got a tip that the alleged gang member was in Marietta, Georgia, but that also turned out to be a dead end.
According to Jones’ defense team, Miami-Dade Police cold case detectives did not follow up on any of the Yacinthe leads provided by Homeland Security.
Miranda ruled the Homeland Security’s investigation as inadmissible, calling the allegations in the report as double hearsay. She would only consider it as possible evidence only if the defense could bring in Yacinthe to testify.
His whereabouts remain unknown.
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