How Columbus courthouse turned into COVID-19 ‘bubble’ for first federal court case in months
It’s not uncommon for a judge to tell a witness to speak up in court.
It is unusual for the witness to be sitting in the jury box, wearing a clear plastic face mask, behind a Plexiglass shield, during a trial that’s being held in the midst of a pandemic.
“Use your loud voice,” U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land told a woman testifying this week in his Columbus courtroom, where each witness was instructed to clean the chair with a sanitizing wipe before being dismissed.
The federal trial that began Monday was among the first to follow the coronavirus lockdown that in March ended all Georgia court trials, state and federal.
Now those restrictions are easing, and courts are taking the first steps toward resuming normal operations, with unusual precautions.
In Land’s courtroom downtown, the jurors sat spaced out where spectators normally would be, in the audience. Witnesses testifying from their seat in the center of the jury box appeared on TV screens facing the jury.
Everyone was wearing a face mask, including the judge and his clerks, who also sat behind Plexiglass shields. At one table in front of them sat the prosecutors, at another the defense attorneys, all facing the jury instead of the judge.
Each table had hand sanitizer and sanitary wipes, and everyone entering through security had a temperature check.
“I guess it’s like playing in the bubble,” said defense attorney William Kendrick, referencing sports teams who isolated personnel for safety during games.
With jurors occupying the seating usually left for spectators, the spectators sat in an overhead balcony. Among them was Charles Peeler, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia, whose office is in Macon.
He praised Land’s safeguards designed to “maximize safety” while balancing the rights of the accused, who are entitled to a speedy trial, against protecting the public. He had heard of no other federal court in Georgia resuming trials since the lockdown, he said.
David Bunt, clerk of court for the middle district, said Land set an example for the district, which has courtrooms in Albany, Athens, Macon and Valdosta.
“It will certainly serve as a template within our district,” he said. “Each courthouse is different in terms of size, space and layout, but this gives us a framework.... We benefited from other federal courts’ experience thus far, so I would hope we can be a resource to any other courts looking for one.”
Planning for the trial began months ago, he said.
“Our headquarters in D.C., the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, put out some guidance,” Bunt said. “There are also some other courts across the country that tried cases, and we took that guidance and distilled it down to something that we felt would work here in our courts.”
Once that guidance is distilled, “it boils down to social distancing, masks and hand hygiene,” he said. “We basically had to completely change our mindset on how the courtroom is laid out.”
The district suspended jury trials on March 16, but its grand juries began to reconvene in June. The precautions taken then were instructive in planning for this trial, he said. The grand jurors had temperature screenings and sat spaced apart in a courtroom, wearing masks, with sanitizing supplies provided.
Making sure jurors feel safe is a priority, so they can focus on their task, and not worry about their health, he said: “We want them thinking about and listening to the evidence that’s being presented.”
The case
On trial this week was Ernesto Rivera Rodriguez, accused of making threats of violence over interstate communications.
According to testimony, he had a time-share in the Orlando area where Polk County deputies arrested him for possessing marijuana. They handcuffed him in front of his family, who were there for his anniversary, and he was so outraged he never went back. But the company running the time-share kept sending him bills, for two years, so he called the Las Vegas-based business from Harris County, and threatened to return with guns to settle the dispute.
After eight hours’ deliberation, jurors found him guilty at 11:45 a.m. Thursday. Land set his sentencing for Jan. 26.
The jury had no trouble hearing Rodriguez’s recorded calls, when they were replayed in the courtroom, but the testimony from the women who took those calls was not always as clear.
“Ma’am, you need to speak up,” Land told one who, when Kendrick asked whether it was safe to say she didn’t feel Rodriguez threatened her personally, answered “No,” meaning it wasn’t safe to say, but no one could tell what she meant.
Jurors must be able not only to hear witnesses, but to see their faces, to judge their credibility and demeanor. That’s an aspect of the “confrontation clause” of the U.S. Constitution, giving defendants the right to confront their accusers, and it’s one of the trickier factors in resuming trials with COVID-19 precautions.
“Facial expressions are at the very heart of that,” said Gil McBride, chief judge of Georgia’s six-county Chattahoochee Judicial Circuit that includes Columbus.
State courts restart
While Land was holding a trial in federal court in Columbus, McBride was in Harris County Superior Court in Hamilton, where the Chattahoochee Circuit’s first grand jury convened since the March lockdown.
The state and federal court systems operate differently, and the circuit won’t be taking all its coronavirus cues from Land’s court, McBride said, but doubtlessly some of the precautions will be similar, such as finding ways to ensure jurors can see witnesses’ faces as they testify, either with clear face shields, Plexiglass or both.
Kendrick, who was representing Rodriguez along with law partner Mark Shelnutt, noted Land’s court has much more space than state courtrooms in the Columbus Government Center, which have no balconies to which the press and public could be directed, were jurors seated in the audience.
Superior Court is open to the public, and often families of defendants and victims crowd in, so that will be another challenge to resuming trials.
McBride said each county has formed a committee to study how best to allocate space within its courtrooms, which vary in age and floor space. “Each courthouse is configured a little differently,” he said.
Besides Muscogee and Harris, the circuit’s other counties are Chattahoochee, Talbot, Taylor and Marion. Marion County has the oldest courthouse, dating back to 1850, he said.
On Oct. 26, Muscogee County is to assemble its first grand jury since March, and expects to resume trials in January.
Before Superior Court trials restart, the county likely will employ its committee recommendations for COVID-19 safety in a “mock trial,” using volunteer attorneys, and see how those safeguards work in practice, McBride said.
Bunt, the federal court clerk, said authorities monitoring the virus and its spread have been weighing the dangers of COVID-19 against a defendant’s right to a fair and speedy trial.
“In certain cases, it was ultimately determined that it’s time for that right now to win out,” he said. “We’re equipped. We’re supplied. We’re experienced now in dealing with this virus, and I think it was an appropriate time to move forward.”
From now on, each trial will require extensive planning, he said:
“It’s going to be resource-intensive. It’s going to require a lot of staff involvement, and we’re going to go through lots of supplies, and do everything that we have to do to keep jurors safe, and to give everyone a fair opportunity for trial.”
This story was originally published October 23, 2020 at 9:00 AM.