HANCOCK COUNTY — The county’s courts have once again been asked by state officials to delay jury trials due to a surge in COVID-19 cases.
While the local courts will continue to operate as fully as possible, — conducting other tasks such as bench trials, hearings and sentencings — the mandate will affect the caseload of the county’s three courts for weeks.
The Indiana Supreme Court handed down an order suspending all jury trials statewide late Monday, Dec. 14. The moratorium will last until March 1, 2021. The court cited the need for “drastic measures” as COVID-19 numbers continue to rise. State officials said in-person jury trials pose an “exceptional risk” to everyone involved — even if every precaution is taken.
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The order comes as many counties last week were designated “red” status by the Indiana State Department of Health in its metric for measuring community spread of the virus. Counties that are in that category — including Hancock — are suffering high infection rates.
The state color-coded map will be updated today (Wednesday, Dec. 16).
Officials working in the county courts know all too well that COVID-19 knows no boundaries. In Hancock County Superior Court 1, Judge Marie Castetter had been ill after testing positive for the virus. Court Commissioner Cody Coombs handled all the cases in Superior Court 1 during Castetter’s absence.
While Castetter is back on the bench, Coombs now has tested positive for COVID and said he will be working from home for at least the next week. He was already in the process of switching many of his hearings to virtual meetings before contracting the virus, he said.
Hancock County Circuit Court is proceeding with hearings and bench trials and is fully operational, Judge Scott Sirk said in an email to the Daily Reporter.
Sirk noted the court is conducting some business remotely using programs such as Zoom, and he has limited capacity to 25 people in his courtroom, the largest one in the courthouse.
In Hancock County Superior Court 2, Judge Dan Marshall said in an email to the Daily Reporter the Supreme Court order will have minimal effect on his docket.
“Most day-to-day activities will continue as normal, but I will be delaying jury trials,” he said.
Fortunately, Marshall noted, his office resolved a great number of cases on the jury trial calendar during September, October and November.
“It will create some backups, but at this point we adjusted to modifying our court calendars to respond to this virus,” Marshall said.
Since March, the state courts have been balancing the need to keep courts open with sensitivity to public health guidelines. The worsening pandemic creates urgency for officials to halt jury trials as they try to maintain all other court operations, including through remote proceedings.
“We have hope that 2021 will bring improved conditions, but hoping is not enough,” Chief Justice Loretta Rush said in a news release. “There is more we must do, and we must act now.”
The Supreme Court has given local courts authority to adjust operations since the beginning of the public health emergency, most recently in a Nov. 10 order. This authority has included holding remote proceedings and streaming public hearings online. In addition, a Resuming Operations Task Force released guidance on managing court proceedings as conditions change; guidance on safely resuming court operations; and protocols for mitigating in-court exposure.
Despite all the measures that have been taken, more than 6,000 Hoosiers have died from the virus, and Indiana has the fourth-highest number of daily cases per 100,000 residents in the nation. By limiting non-essential in-court proceedings, Indiana courts can avoid intensifying the pandemic’s impact on the communities, Rush said.
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County’s death toll from COVID-19 rises, Page A4.
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