This story was updated at 10:15 a.m. to reflect breaking news: Because of an ill prosecutor, the jury will not be empaneled and the trial will be pushed to March or April, with a new jury chosen at that time.
Full story follows.
Opening statements are expected later today in the trial of Thomas Kinworthy, who in August 2020 is alleged to have murdered police officer Tamarris Bohannon in St. Louis’ Tower Grove South neighborhood.
The case has already attracted significant controversy on its path toward trial.
Kinworthy’s attorneys are expected to pursue a defense of not guilty by reason of mental defect or deficiency. As part of that “insanity defense,” Kinworthy was evaluated by a state mental health professional in December 2022. The report stemming from the evaluation was supposed to be kept confidential, but a copy of it was accidentally briefly made public in May. Post-Dispatch reporter Katie Kull noticed it and called public defender Brian Horneyer for comment. Horneyer responded to her call with “several expletives,” as he put it, and his office sought to bar the paper from publishing anything based on the report.
After a series of hearings Judge Elizabeth Hogan sided with the public defender’s office, exercising what’s called “prior restraint,” a legal term for government censoring speech. It was an unusual use of such powers and drew significant flak from the legal community. Experts say the contents of Kinworthy’s mental health report don’t seem to meet the very specific criteria that would typically allow the government to censor newspaper reporting on it, such as if the report had information that could compromise national security.
The material in the report is said to be “salacious,” and Kinworthy’s attorney has said that its publication may taint the jury pool, making it difficult for Kinworthy to get a fair trial.
Jury selection began last week and is expected to conclude this morning, with opening statements following after. In those opening statements jurors will almost certainly hear about the events of August 29, 2020. On that day, according to a police probable cause statement, an armed Kinworthy ran into a house on Hartford Avenue. The home’s two residents fled out the back door. Bohannon responded to the scene, but as he approached the front door, Kinworthy allegedly opened fire on the police officer, killing him. He was taken into custody after a 12-hour standoff.
Bohannon left behind three children.
In pursuing an insanity defense, Kinworthy’s defense will likely concede that he did kill Bohannon but that due to his mental state he was “incapable of knowing and appreciating” the “wrongfulness of his conduct.”
KSDK’s Christine Byers reported last week that the Kinworthy has faced other significant criminal allegations in 2019 and 2020 including charges domestic violence, sexual assault and getting “busted him with an arsenal of weapons inside his car.”
UPDATE: The trial of Kinworthy will not be happening this week as scheduled. The lead prosecutor, Mary Pat Carl, has fallen ill.
After a brief hearing this morning, Judge Elizabeth Hogan ordered the case be continued to a later date, giving both prosecutors and defense attorneys three options to choose from in March and April when the trial will go on.
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