The Star, media file motion to oppose limiting news coverage of NKC capital murder trial
The Kansas City Star and other local media are opposing a request in court to limit news coverage of an upcoming capital murder trial involving the killing of a North Kansas City police officer during a July 2022 traffic stop.
The McClatchy Company, which owns and operates The Star, along with the parent companies of the Courier-Tribune, KCTV, KMBC-TV, KSHB-TV and WDAF-TV, filed a motion to intervene after the public defenders for Joshua Rocha filed a motion to “regulate” media coverage of his murder trial.
The motion, filed last week, “effectively means to prohibit media coverage,” the news media contend in their motion to intervene, pointing out that the Missouri Supreme Court has permitted cameras in the courtroom for more than two decades.
“The Star and other local journalists have a responsibility to ensure the public has transparent access to this important trial,” The Star’s executive editor Greg Farmer said Wednesday. “We appreciate the opportunity to partner with Liberty’s local newspaper, The Courier-Tribune, and the four big Kansas City television news stations to advocate on behalf of our community and its right to a free flow of information.”
A hearing on the matter and other motions is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday before Clay County Judge David Chamberlain.
Killed during a traffic stop
Clay County prosecutors have accused 27-year-old Rocha of fatally shooting North Kansas City police officer Daniel Vasquez after the 32-year-old officer pulled over a vehicle with an expired license plate on the morning of July 19, 2022.
Vasquez joined the North Kansas City Police Department in January 2021 as a recruit officer, and was promoted to full officer after graduating from the Kansas City Police Department’s Regional Police Academy in July 2021.
Dash cam video and physical evidence from the scene showed a suspect shoot Vasquez as he approached, before exiting the vehicle and firing upon the officer again.
The killing set off a statewide search as authorities hunted for the suspect vehicle. Rocha walked into a Clay County government building hours later, telling a clerk he wished to surrender. A weapon, described by Kansas City police as an assault-style rifle, was allegedly on the passenger seat of the vehicle he had left in the parking lot.
Prosecutors initially charged Rocha with first-degree murder and armed criminal action following Vasquez’s death. In March 2023, prosecutors filed a notice that they would seek the death penalty.
Rocha has pleaded not guilty.
The jury is to be selected from St. Charles County, with questionnaires being sent out in early August and the final selection to begin in mid-September. The trial is scheduled to begin on Sept. 29 and is expected to last two weeks.
Request to prohibit audio, visual coverage
In their motion, Rocha’s defense team, Delaney Catlettstout and Stephen Reynolds with the Missouri Public Defender’s Office, requested that audio and visual coverage be prohibited during all phases of the trial.
They asked that courtroom sketches be allowed. The public defenders also requested that still photography be allowed only during “non-evidentiary portions” of the trial, such as breaks, legal arguments, and procedural matters. This would not include the presentation of evidence or witness testimony.
Rocha’s attorneys contend the limited coverage would ensure a fair trial.
Bernard Rhodes, an attorney representing the media, said in the court filing that Rocha’s defense team failed to show that allowing cameras would deprive him of a fair trial.
Rhodes contends that Rocha’s case is similar to the trial of Kylr Yust in Cass County in 2021. Yust was charged in the murders of 17-year-old Kara Kopetsky, who was reported missing in 2007, and 21-year-old Jessica Runions, who was last seen alive in 2016.
The motion contends that their disappearances and eventual charges against Yust received far more publicity than the case against Rocha.
Due to the publicity, the jury in Yust’s case was selected in St. Charles County, as planned in Rocha’s trial. The judge in the case allowed cameras in the courtroom for both the guilt and sentencing phase, according to the motion.
Rhodes contends that the court “got it right” last August when Chamberlain issued an order on media and decorum concerning pre-trial matters..
In the order, Chamberlain wrote that “the press has a right to accurately report and have access to the information surrounding the trial” and “the court has the obligation to ensure the Defendant receives a fair trial.”
Chamberlain balanced those rights by allowing one pool camera in the courtroom and requiring the news media to follow procedures set out in the rule allowing cameras in Missouri courts.
“The Court should issue a similar ruling with regard to the upcoming trial,” Rhodes said in the motion.
