Jury trials are set to resume in Bartholomew County courts, after they were suspended for about three months due to the pandemic.
While Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta Rush did not suspend in-court trials statewide until mid-December, most judges in Columbus have conducted only essential court matters since the Bartholomew County Courthouse was closed to the general public last spring.
Local judges — Bartholomew Circuit Court Judge Kelly Benjamin, Bartholomew Superior Court 1 Judge James Worton and Bartholomew Superior Court 2 Judge Jon Rohde — all have a significant number of cases waiting to be tried by jury.
“While my court used to set 15 to 20 cases on a jury trial day, it’s now 33 to 40, so it has doubled,” Benjamin said.
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It’s difficult to put meaning in those numbers because the vast majority of those cases will end with pleas, Benjamin said. However, when there are more than three dozen cases stacked up at a time, it increases the probability of lengthy jury trials that create further delays, she said.
The docket in Superior Court 1 will also remain jam-packed for several months. Worton believes he will be presiding over at least one trial every week through June — including a five-day civil jury trial scheduled for the middle of this month.
In Superior Court 2, Rohde says there are only two weeks this year where a jury trial has not been scheduled, so trials are now being put on the calendar for 2022. One upcoming trial prompted Rohde to secure a $4,000 grant from the Indiana Supreme Court, in order to hire a certified Chinese-Mandarin interpreter for a two-day civil case.
After meeting with the other judges, Rohde stressed that protecting the health and safety of everyone in the courthouse must always be the top priority. The courthouse remains under COVID-19 restrictions, and closed to those who have not made an appointment or been summoned by court order.
“If we can do it safely, we’ll move forward with these jury trials that have been waiting for quite some time,” Rohde said. “If it can’t be done safely, we will continue to postpone.”
While Benjamin says she believes all necessary precautions are or will be taken, the judges are concerned about variant strains of COVID-19 that may be more transmissible and more dangerous, she said. By the end of February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there were 16 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant in Indiana — up from just one case in early January.
“I think that’s what Judge Rohde means when he said we’ll continue as long as we think it’s safe,” Benjamin said.
Selecting jurors
Agreements were reached last summer that allow Benjamin and Rohde to conduct jury selections in the Nugent-Custer Performance Hall at the The Commons. With more than 8,000 square feet of space, the facility is large enough for potential jurors and court personnel to easily maintain social distancing.
Since the Superior Court 1 courtroom is substantially larger than the others, selection of a 12-member jury can be done by bringing in small clusters of potential jurors into the courtroom, rather than allowing them in all at once, Worton said. If Superior Court 1 does not have a jury trial in session, Benjamin may follow his lead and ask permission to use his courtroom and bring in small clusters of potential jurors, Circuit Court office manager Tammy Johannesen said.
While each juror in the Superior Court 1 courtroom is protected from neighboring jurors with sheets of plexiglass, Benjamin and Rohde are still discussing additional appropriate measures of protection in their courtrooms, Rohde said.
Besides the normal juror questionnaires, the courts have sent out surveys to find out how safe people will feel if they are selected for jury duty, Johannesen said.
Officials from the Bartholomew County Health Department are providing guidance to the judges on group sizes, as well as how to keep any potential spread of the virus under control, Rohde said. All courtrooms will require each person to have their temperature checked, everyone to wear protective masks and social distancing will be observed at all times, Worton said.
“Nothing is ever 100%,” Worton said. “But I’m confident we are going to have our jury trials, get the system moving again, and do it safely.”
Priorities
In the past few months, some non-violent offenders with fewer than 30 days left on their sentences have been released, which has helped keep the Bartholomew County Jail population at a manageable level for controlling the spread of COVID-19, Worton said.
Once safety concerns are addressed, the judges begin prioritizing which cases will go to trial first. The first priority will be defendants in jail who have not been convicted, because they have constitutional rights, the judges said.
The next priority is observing what’s called Criminal Rule 4, which basically gives prosecutors six months to one year to bring somebody to trial, depending on the circumstances of each case. If that rule is violated, the case could be dismissed and the charges dropped, Worton said. While this rule does not apply if the defense asks for a delay or if there is a court-congested calendar, there may be cases where the rule may still apply, he said.
Due to both COVID-19 and Indiana Supreme Court orders, fast and speedy trial requests had to be set aside while face-to-face trials were suspended. But with so many upcoming trials, problems might arise if two defendants both want fast and speedy trials at about the same time, Worton said.
“We may have to prioritize whoever has been in jail the longest,” Worton said. “That means people who are not in jail who are criminal defendants get pushed down the calendar further. And that’s not even talking about civil trials.”
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In order to be eligible for jury duty in Indiana, you must be:
- A citizen of the United States.
- At least 18 years of age.
- A resident of the county in which you are to serve as a juror.
- Able to communicate in English.
- Not suffering from a physical or mental disability that prevents you from performing your duties as a juror in a satisfactory manner.
- Not under guardianship because of mental incapacity.
- Not a person who has had your right to vote revoked and not yet reinstated as the result of a felony conviction.
- Not a law enforcement officer, if the trial is for a criminal case.
- If you are called for jury duty and would like more information, contact the trial court to which you were called for duty.
Source: courts.in.gov
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