MIAMI (Court TV) — A former University of Miami football player claims that the lead detective in his case is biased — and says that a social media account secretly run by the officer proves it.
Rashaun Jones (Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Rashaun Jones, 40, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his teammate, Bryan Pata, 22, who was shot and killed outside his apartment on Nov. 7, 2006. Jones stood trial earlier this year on the same charge, but a jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision, forcing Judge Cristina Miranda to declare a mistrial.
As Jones’ legal team prepares for a second trial, they’ve asked Miranda to allow them to re-depose Detective Juan Segovia, who served as the lead investigator in the case. Jones’ defense argued in its motion that Segovia secretly created an Instagram account as @balanceof_justice, which he then used to make public comments about the trial, “including statements that the defendant was guilty and attacks on the credibility of a witness with testimony favorable to the defense,” Jones’ attorneys wrote in their motion. “Many of those posts were made while Detective Segovia was under this Court’s sequestration order and before he testified.”
Miranda wasn’t convinced by the defense’s arguments. “I didn’t instruct Detective Segovia that he was not to comment online. I didn’t think it was necessary. I didn’t think that would happen.” But, Miranda said, the comments weren’t about the officer’s testimony, which is all the sequestration order would have covered — the comments only addressed the account holder’s belief that Jones was guilty. “We all assume that if the detective didn’t believe the defendant to be guilty of the offense, he wouldn’t have arrested him,” Miranda countered.
“There is no evidence that any of the jurors in the case ever saw any of these comments or were influenced by any of these comments,” Miranda said. “So assuming that I’m wrong, and it was a violation of the rule of sequestration, the fact that it didn’t influence any of the jurors sitting on the case is extremely significant.”
FILE – In this Nov. 23, 2006, file photo, Bryan Pata’s family hold up his jersey at the beginning of an NCAA college football game between Miami and Boston College at the Orange Bowl in Miami. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez, File)
Prosecutors conceded that when Jones’ attorneys flagged the account, the police department launched an inquiry into Segovia’s behavior. That inquiry remains open, and prosecutors were unable to specify whether it has been escalated to a formal internal affairs investigation.
The defense wants more than just the ability to ask Segovia more questions about the account: it has also asked for registration data, login information, direct messages and other information visible to the account holder. “This is an invasion of whoever this account may be’s privacy to go into all of this,” Assistant State Attorney Cristina Diamond said at Monday’s hearing. “We can only get this data if there’s a warrant signed by a court for a criminal investigation, and there is no crime here.”
The account itself was created eight months before the start of Jones’ first trial, leading Miranda to rule that the account wasn’t created for the express purpose of talking about the trial; the first comments attributed to @balanceof_justice are not even about the case.
Miranda did concede that the existence of a potential internal affairs investigation would be relevant to the defense; the parties are due to return to court next month, when prosecutors will be asked to give an update on the police department inquiry.
Jones’ retrial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 14.
