KARE 11 appeal: Ramsey County judge’s order retracting court document violates First Amendment

A petition filed by attorneys representing Twin Cities television station KARE 11 alleges that a Ramsey County judge’s order to retract a court document publicly filed in a St. Paul double murder case violates the First Amendment’s prior restraint clause.

The petition filed Wednesday by attorneys representing KARE 11, says Judge Joy Bartscher violated the broadcasters’ First Amendment protections when ordering the public to limit and destroy a pre-sentencing memo publicly filed by attorneys representing 34-year-old Joseph Sandoval II in the 2022 slaying of two men at a St. Paul sober house. In a court filing, they asked the Minnesota Court of Appeals to stop Bartscher “from enforcing unconstitutional prior restraints on speech issued on July 19, 2024, in oral and written orders that purport to prohibit the media, including KARE 11, from displaying, publishing, or disseminating a sentencing memorandum lawfully obtained from the Court’s public access website and require destruction of that memorandum.”

In her July 19 order, Bartscher said Sandoval’s defense mistakenly made the document public, adding that the memo has information that could be harmful to Sandoval. The order states that the memo cannot be copied or used for “educational, research or demonstrative purposes, or used in any other fashion,” besides court proceedings. KARE 11′s petition also alleges that Bartscher told media to destroy the memo.

“I do want to notify anybody that is here from the media that may have had access to ... the memorandum that the defense prepared ... that this order says that if there were copies made no additional copies or any portion of the memorandum should be made by parties who had access to it,” Bartscher said in court, according to the petition first published by KARE 11 in an investigative report.

“[And] if somebody printed a copy of that memo, I’m ordering that they destroy any printed copy of that memo. If that memo was shared with anyone and they received it, it should be destroyed.”

Leita Walker and Isabella Salomão Nascimento, the Ballard Spahr attorneys representing KARE 11, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. They wrote, however, that the order “had immediate and far-reaching consequences on KARE 11′s reporting. For example, KARE 11 had planned to use non-sensitive information from the sentencing memorandum in a broadcast about Sandoval’s sentencing. For fear of contempt, however, KARE 11 omitted that information from the broadcast, which aired at 6:30 p.m. that day.”

“Unless and until the Orders are lifted, and with each passing minute, KARE 11 suffers the ongoing, significant harm of having truthful speech about the lawfully obtained sentencing memorandum infringed,” the petition read. “It therefore requests that this Court consider and grant this Petition expeditiously.”

Sandoval pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in the killings of 56-year-old Jon Wentz and 40-year-old repairman Jason Murphy at a home in the1100 block of E. Lawson Avenue, but claimed to have foggy memory of the incident. During his arrest, Sandoval told officers that he used fentanyl and heard voices in the TV warn that Murphy and Wentz would kill him unless he took the opportunity. A bloodied knife and hammer were recovered from the scene.

He entered a Norgaard plea, which “allows a defendant to accept the consequences of their actions even though they are unable to provide a factual basis due to drug use or mental health impairment at the time,” according to the Ramsey County Attorney’s office. Although Sandoval was eventually found competent to stand trial, officials believe his case unveils gaps in Minnesota’s mental health system, and his case was part of a larger investigation by KARE 11.

According to the County Attorney’s Office, Sandoval was under civil commitment in Hennepin County before killing Murphy and Wentz. He had been charged with several violent offenses, including first-degree burglary and assault, but a Hennepin County judge found him incompetent to stand trial in 2021.

A month later, Sandoval was committed to the Anoka Metro Regional Treatment Center but was transferred to the sober home managed by Evergreen Recovery on Oct. 20, 2022 — the day he killed Murphy and Wentz.

“This tragic case is a heartbreaking reminder of the limits our mental health system faces when addressing the needs of those with profound mental illness in the justice system who are found incompetent to stand trial but do not receive adequate treatment or supervision,” County Attorney John Choi said in a previous statement.