A Missouri judge on May 23, 2023, barred the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and one of its reporters from publishing details from the mental health evaluation of a man set to stand trial for allegedly killing a police officer in 2020.
Post-Dispatch reporter Katie Kull obtained a copy of a mental health report on the defendant, Thomas J. Kinworthy Jr., when it was filed in St. Louis City Circuit Court on May 18. According to court filings reviewed by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, two copies of the report were filed by mistake, with one incorrectly made available to the public.
Kull contacted the public defender representing Kinworthy for comment on May 22, the Riverfront Times reported, and the attorney immediately filed a request for a temporary restraining order. The following day, Judge Elizabeth Hogan granted the order, barring Kull, the Post-Dispatch and any of its employees from publishing about the report.
In a tweet, Kull wrote, “I tried to write a story but instead I found myself under a court order.”
On May 23, the Post-Dispatch filed an initial response to the order, asking that it be dissolved and noting that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected such orders when the documents were legally obtained.
“This is true even when statutes prohibit dissemination of such information, as is the case here,” attorneys for the Post-Dispatch wrote. “It is also true when information is inadvertently released that should not have been released, which is the apparent situation here.”
Neither Kull nor the Post-Dispatch responded to requests for comment.
Freedom of the Press Foundation, which oversees the operation of the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, condemned the prior restraint.
“On the rare occasion when the government has a legitimate basis to withhold records from the public, the onus is on the government, not the press, to ensure that they’re withheld,” Advocacy Director Seth Stern wrote. “That’s why the Court has held at least four times that once the government releases records to the press, even accidentally, it cannot claw them back or prohibit or punish their publication, regardless of how sensitive the records may be.”
The restraining order will remain in place as the case progresses, according to the Times, and the Post-Dispatch has until June 12 to submit motions in opposition.
This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.