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‘It Will Have Effects for Months and Years.’ From Jury Duty to Trials, Coronavirus is Wreaking Havoc on Courts
'It Will Have Effects for Months and Years.' From Jury Duty to Trials, Coronavirus is Wreaking Havoc on Courts 'It Will Have Effects for Months and Years.' From Jury Duty to Trials, Coronavirus is Wreaking Havoc on Courts A Supreme Court police officer walks up the steps at the U.
S. Supreme Court on March 16, 2020 in Washington, DC.hen Joanna Lin appeared for jury duty in New York City on March 12, she noticed the other 180 prospective jurors in the Manhattan waiting room were trying to avoid one another, choosing seats as far apart as possible. Some wore masks, and just about everyone, including the court clerk, was discussing the coronavirus.The next day, that changed. New York and several other courts across the country had suspended jury selection and postponed new criminal and civil trials to try to stem the spread of the virus. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it was postponing upcoming oral arguments for the first time in more than 100 years; the last time it did so was in 1918 in response to the Spanish flu epidemic. Jury duty cancellations no doubt are being met with relief by many prospective jurors who feared having to sit in a room teeming with strangers for hours at a time when health officials were urging people to keep their distance from each other.And while closing courtrooms and halting jury duty makes sense for public health reasons, some legal experts warn the delays could create an overwhelming backlog of cases and have legal ramifications, since defendants are guaranteed a speedy and fair trial under the Constitution. “I’ve never heard of anything like this,” says Raffi Melkonian, an appellate lawyer in Houston. “This truly is unprecedented. It will have effects for months and years after we are back to normal.”already affecting thousands of people in the United States, federal and state courts throughout most of the nation have implemented new measures—from restricting who can enter the building to delaying jury trials—in an effort to contain it. In Los Angeles, the high-profile murder trial of real estate scion Robert Durst has been put on hold for three weeks, a judge announced Sunday. The 76-year-old was, a documentary series that delved into the disappearance of Durst’s wife Kathie in 1982 and Berman’s murder in Los Angeles 20 years ago. Durst’s highly anticipated trial has been slated to last about five months.
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