please the court my name is gill and wilcox and i represent granger doe in this case ask the following question to what extent does the government unprecedented public disclosure of grand jury evidence including highly unusual circumstances where in the context of this case the secrecy interests have been diminished and this is an ad replied st amendment challenge to a content based speech restriction  all that was required was a shortened plain statement of the claim showing that really for the plausible on its face a claim that allows the court to draw reasonable inferences that the defendant is liable there is no requirement of detail zero and did not do so here there must be a proper balance in viewing the facts in this light conducting the proper balancing there may be certain categories of speech that could be limited but the trial court here viewed the allegations as the dough was wanting to say an unlimited amount of speech and is simply not the case does not ask to disclose the names of other jurors or how they individually voted she's not actually has asked only to share her experience and opinions and while allegations did reference prior proceedings there's claim what is important is what the government did in this case which is unprecedented and what the government said in this case which was a public statement interpreted in characterizing it editorializing what was in front of this grand jury and the government did not just release documents or transcripts but instead came out and interpreted what was before the grand jury and now the only group of people including our client who can come out and speak up about what was said are still itself is unprecedented and then all of those over twenty volumes that are in big exhibit c i think that was attached to the petition and with this court have all of those volumes of transcripts and then also autopsy reports written witness statements and the redaction did include witness names and identifying information of witnesses for the most part there are a couple witnesses whose names are in that evidence one issue with how the government characterized the evidence is that the government said it was a collective decision implying that the grand jury agreed to some extent our client would would like to speak out about a disagreement with that characterization of how the grand jury came to  there were five separate i believe five indictments presented with five different charges they could indict on and so to say that to come out and say that was a collective this isn't the grand jury is interpretation that the public could read of the grand jury agreeing on everything all five of those charges the government publicly summarize what was presented in a way that suggested how the jurors view the evidence as a group and there are over sixty witness interviews reports forensic evidence and other in an interview in addition to being thousands of pages of transcript grander weka glasses there are secrets interests here and that traditionally those interests are very compelling and may in every traditional sense come to a conclusion of secrecy those interests as the case as i've said of the supreme court are perspective witnesses hesitant to come forward voluntarily voluntarily witnesses are less likely to be there are no charges that are going to come forth i think in any other case isn't that almost at least in large part what you claim seeks to discuss in this case as an adult applied challenge that specific interest is completely diminished by the fact that the suspects name who is not indicted is already in the public sphere so everyone knows that this was the investigation into darren wilson and his reputation based on that our client speaking out about it is not going to do any more harm than what's already been done in the public so the government put his name out there not our client and at this point our client a silence from st anything i remember our client cannot even confirm publicly that it wanted to say could violate the oath i just provided and so we would like to be reminded for the opportunity to develop a record so that the court can then look at the statement or specific things she wants to say and w the last would be protected and those not indicted which is what i was just speaking of him so there is there are categories of speech right now that our client is prohibited from same publicly that she was confused about the instructions and the opinions of any juror including herself confirming in fact that the evidence that has been released was in fact the evidence presented to this grand jury again that there in wil name during johnson he testified his name is in the public that he testified our client cannot confirm that the name of the victim michael brown much better well mcfadden in the documents that were failed to undertake the proper balance the government has publicly stated their position including what was attached to our complaint at a believe exhibit b which is the full statement of the government and the a st amendment right that no court has recognized doe asked missouri's courts to create an exception to the grand jury secrecy requirements for her missouri's courts denied that request secrecy is crucial to missouri grand jury process the public not merely the government has an interest in grand jury secrecy which was adopted to promote the public welfare like the federal constitution and the bill of rights and missouri's constitution provides for grand juries the missouri supreme court has recognized that grand juries are an important part of missouri's criminal justice system and that the people are entitled to have grand juries proceed under the statutes that govern them the grand jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community protect citizens from being a died for felonies without probable cause the united states create a st amendment right for grand jurors and this court should not do so missouri has no procedure like the federal rule six the interest of witnesse of innocent persons investigated by this and other grand juries past and future and the public interest in having a functioning grand jury system would be harmed by allowing joe to speak about grand jury matters state has a compelling interest in protecting witness intimidation and preventing witness intimidation allowing doe to expose information about any of the witnesses in the matters that she sat on or their families could result in harm to them i would say two things in response to that your honor i i do not know if the law required the prosecutor to disclose any of the information here that's not a clear and settled i would also say that the prosecutor did not take the same oath that the grand juror did and that there is a very strong public interest here that one county prosecutor did not have the power to waive and that remains very witnesses would be unwilling or be very reluctant to come forward if their personal information or information about their families could be shared publicly so i think i think their argument may be a little more nuanced and your response may well be the same as you open with but i think their argument is having disclosed a lot of grand jury information the secrecy interest is not as great as it normally would would be what's your response to that i don't know that i agree with that your honor if you look at the interests that are behind grand jury secrecy that the united states supreme court has recognized i would also say that as in my brief not everything was transcribed the deliberations of course were not transcribed and the missouri court of appeals looked at this and said that giving a grand juror unrestrained ability to share her interpretation of what happened and was presented to the grand jury would completely destroy the idea of secrecy i know that there are documents that were released and that are out there i freely admit that but there is a lot of difference between a cold transcript and between hundreds of matters which is alleged in the complaint and there's been no argument that the curtains been drawn back on any of those matters but this would be less likely to testify fully and fairly if they were willing to come forward and cooperate at all if grand jurors secrecy and grand jury secrecy was not enforced they would be open to retribution and social stigma that especially true in controversial highly sensitive matters such as the death of michael brown now grand jury witnesses under butterworth and other cases they do have those witnesses have a recognized st amendment right to speak about what they saw and matters that they knew before they came in testified to the grand jury but even in that situation a grand juror witness has no st amendment right to speak about the testimony of other grand jury witness were promised and this is made very clear under missouri law that their identities and their where they live their personal information is protected by a law allowing doe to expose her fellow grand jurors could jeopardize their safety will be reluctant to actively engage and truthfully engage in creating jury deliberations specially in highly sensitive matters if they know that one of their fellow grand jurors can talk about what they or their fellow said accurately or inaccurately it would be hard to find people willing to serve on granger is from the future where a grand jury has delayed actual what's your response i think  in their opening argument ms wilcox suggested that this could be more narrowly tailored that we could agree that she would not discuss the names of other jurors are other public interest if you look at the interests of innocent people including in the extended grand jury proceeding who were not indicted those all counsel against giving a st amendment right even if it's limited and how would there would be no feasible way to police that and to ensure that starkly limited her disclosures to what the court's order sad if the horse is out of the  i believe that it was unnecessary your honor but if i am incorrect about that i believe that the district court is correct that the balance would far outweigh doe's desire to speak that the balance of interests would far away in favor of the the grand jury system's continued ability to function innocent persons all the persons who are protected by grand jury secrecy so what is the legal test that we should apply if it's not balancing what  in other words and their further response would be i guess that's all you need to acknowledge that in some other contacts in some cases that have been brought under rule six or that have involved the office of independent counsel which i believe are factually legally quite different from this case i acknowledge that in those situations where certain documents are information have been public for example if there has been a criminal prosecution in which case various testimony and documents will necessarily be public because those proceedings are open to the public then in those cases that has been considered in rule sixty eight and other contacts i do acknowledge that but that's not this case it's also worth considering that another grand jury could potentially receive additional evidence or testimony there's nothing that would stop the prosecutor or potentially the united states department of justice from having another grand jury take a look at some matter related to the death of michael brown or any matter where there has not been an indictment it would be unjust for this court to allow to speak about the grand jury's investigation of the innocent as the court knows the great and from the complaint the grand jury that to sat on considered hundreds of matters the public has a right to functional grand juries in sync the court looked at the fact that certain matters  authority for that your honor is that if the grand jury proceedings are traditionally closed i look at i could not find a case where a court specifically on point looked at ok should united for haps the status of grand juries at the time the st amendment was adopted i went back into the night team century and missouri your honor but i am not an expert on the status of pre injury is at the time that the st amendment was adopted thank you correct so from plaintiff's perspective the st amendment does apply to grand juries and what we look after that is there is case law that says the grand jury operate within the limits of the st amendment as well as other constitutional provisions and national apply witness but is the most analogous case we have had language in it that very generally says that grand juries do operate within the limits of the st amendment let me ask you did you look back at all to see how grand juries operated  do think that there is there are cases discussed and i don't have a direct answer to that about what it was at that specific time they have brought there are a lot of the interest and secrecy have been diminished over time and in fact in the government own filings below with the with the circuit court to release this information and acknowledge that some of the interest and transparency have gone away over time and that grand juries are not as secret as they once were so i do think that true we agree that typically grand juries are sacrosanct and that is why this is an as applied challenge and the balancing test needs to be done here in this case under these very specific unprecedented and probably never to occur again circumstances although we don't know that of course and we're just arguing here not that there are not secrecy and interests of course are not even that they're not compelling but that they've been diminish ouldn't the burden be on you to suggest more limited things that she could say rather than pleading blanket leading she can say what she wants to that the presentation of evidence to the grand jury deferred in certain ways than it does from other proceedings that the state counsel to the grand jury in the wilson investigation differed that from her perspective and these are are from her perspective of course that there was a stronger focus on the victim that the presentation of the law was muddled than untimely and then finally she simply alleg why she wants to disclose this but it does it she would like to i mean how it knows she knows the truth about the matter she knows what occurred nothing been nothing has been withheld from from her she was there she can compare her own recollection with what the prosecutor might be citing publicly so as far as she's concerned doesn't that satisfy you need personal interests that she not have the personal interest she has right now to speak are simply that she yes she knows that what happened but she would like to come out publicly and say that and because she was one of the grand jurors in the room and the government has spoken and interpreted what was presented to the to those jurors she would like to come out and help educate the public on that process and what happened there in a manner that can be limited by the district court that far as what she can say so being silent does not allow her the opportunity to come forward and make any statement either challenging or agreeing with or confirming anything that the government has already put forward completely silent the government has put thousands of pages of documents and transcript out and the bottom line is that their interest in secrecy because of those actions are diminished to the point that she should be allowed to speak for whatever reason but to be able to come forward and say what she wants to and she has there are allegations plaid about educating the public and moving the conversation about racial discussions and how  i understand what you're saying that the government did redact witness names and took out sensitive information there's no allegation our client wants to release that information thank you thank you counsel we appreciate your appearance in arguments today