Resumption of jury trials in the Eastern District of Arkansas begins Monday and is expected to ramp up activity at the federal courthouse in Little Rock to levels not seen since the pandemic forced suspensions in March 2020.
In addition, a plan -- on hold since the pandemic started -- to hold regular trials in the federal courthouses in Jonesboro and Helena-West Helena will be implemented.
Other than the U.S. district judges and their courtroom staffs, the four major components affected by the trials' resumption are the U.S. attorney's office, the federal public defenders office, the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. district court clerk's office.
U.S. District Court Clerk James McCormack praised judges and staffers working in the courthouse for keeping the calendar moving despite most jury trials being suspended over the past 14 months.
"Even though jury trials were suspended during most of that time, the courthouse stayed open. We kept a five-day-a-week schedule of hearings, and we worked to keep the calendar moving," McCormack said. "We may not have had jury trials, but all other proceedings continued via video teleconferencing and in-person hearings. We've stayed open through the pandemic."
In his latest administrative order dealing with court operations during the pandemic, Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. set Monday as the date to resume jury trials. That is after completion of three pilot trials -- one civil and two criminal -- during March and April, with verdicts returned in all three and no reports of resulting illness.
Marshall has ordered district judges to coordinate with the clerk's office to keep the number of people in the courthouse at any one time to a minimum and for the federal courthouses in Helena-West Helena and Jonesboro to be used as much as possible.
Conditions are improving, but McCormack said the pandemic is still very much a threat, and efforts to minimize the possibility of infection in the courthouse will continue. Those include mask-wearing, sanitation protocols, physical distancing and the continued use of technology to conduct some hearings.
"Covid has required us to use whatever space we have available," he said. During a recent civil trial that lasted two weeks in U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr.'s courtroom, prospective jurors were directed to a large orientation room on the first floor to watch via video link while voir dire -- preliminary juror or witness questioning -- was held in the courtroom. Only a limited number of prospective jurors were allowed in the courtroom at one time.
"We used a courtroom for jury deliberations, and we provided two additional rooms for attorneys to try and minimize the presence in the courtroom itself where the trial was going on," McCormack said. "Judge Moody had a simulcast going to the attorney conference rooms for the paralegals and other attorneys so they could keep up with what was going on inside the courtroom."
The same procedure was used for jury selection in a criminal trial that followed in Moody's courtroom. For the next criminal trial, U.S. District Judge Lee P. Rudofsky elected to place the jury pool in the courtroom for voir dire while limiting other attendance to attorneys, the defendant, necessary staffers and a reporter.
With the full-scale resumption of jury trials, Marshall ordered that district judges coordinate with the clerk's office to create a staggered schedule to minimize the number of people in the courthouse at a given time.
"We're going to limit ourselves to no more than two juries a day, which will give all of the judges an equal opportunity to manage their dockets by setting trials," McCormack said. "That will enable us to get them in there for orientation and to get them into the courtroom."
McCormack said a staggered schedule of no more than two trials each to begin on Mondays, Tuesdays and -- for those trials expected to last no more than two or three days -- Thursdays, makes it possible to impanel two juries a day while maintaining distancing requirements.
Impaneling a jury involves narrowing a pool of 40 to 60 people down to 12 jurors and two alternates to hear a case.
"The judges are working with each other and with the jury administrator to try to maximize our ability to conduct jury trials but to balance that so that we're only initiating two jury trials a day," McCormack said.
As for the federal courthouses in Jonesboro and Helena-West Helena, acting U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross said holding trial there was in the planning stages but had not been implemented before the pandemic changed how U.S. District Court conducted business.
Holding trial in those two cities has happened, but it's been rare. "But now it will happen by default in that the cases out of those divisions will be tried in those courtrooms," Ross said.
He said jury trials were supposed to begin in Jonesboro and Helena-West Helena last August in response to an act of Congress that rezoned Arkansas' Eastern District into three divisions, but that was delayed by the pandemic.
The resumption of jury trials, he said, puts back into play a valuable tool that judges have for managing their court dockets -- firm court dates.
"This is true in both the state and federal systems," he said. "Without those pending trial dates that would normally be there except for covid, there's been less incentive for defendants in all systems to get their cases resolved."
Lisa Peters, head of the federal public defenders office in Little Rock, said the pandemic changed how her office represents clients assigned to it. Sending out investigators to look into cases and track down witnesses are examples.
"We've been limited in doing that, but we've still fared well. We do what we can," Peters said. "We've had to get continuances, of course, during the pandemic, because we were not able to effectively and efficiently do our jobs. But now that everything is ramping back up, we aren't necessarily operating as business as usual, but the business has to be done."
Peters said her greatest concern is the safety and well-being of her staff while adequately providing effective defenses for clients.
"If we can do things safely regarding interviewing witnesses, traveling and ... doing what we need to do to prepare for a trial, that's what we're doing," she said. "We don't have a choice since the court has determined that jury trials will resume."
"Depending on where our clients are, a lot of our jail visits have been restricted, not just because we want precautions taken for our own safety, but a lot of the jails are not allowing visitations," she said.
"Fortunately, our office has been equipped since the beginning of the pandemic with virtual equipment so we can maintain as much contact as possible with our clients, but of course that requires participation by the jail facility as well as technology" support at the jail.
With 14 different county jails and other facilities contracted by the Eastern District of Arkansas to hold detainees, Peters said some facilities manage better than others in making clients available.
"There have been times we've had an appointment set to see a client and a jail administrator forgets or pushes it to the back burner, but our deadlines still have to be met with the court," she said. "Most of the jail facilities have been great in trying to work with us in these trying times, but everybody is stretched."
Jay Tuck, acting U.S. marshal for the Eastern District of Arkansas, said his office will probably have the least amount of adjustment to make in resumption of trials, mainly because his responsibility for transporting federal detainees never slacked off during the pandemic, so any adjustments were made months ago.
In addition to providing transportation and courtroom security, his office oversees security for defendants in courtrooms. Resuming trials will require flexibility, but he said that's hard-wired into the U.S. Marshals Service operations.
"We've got a pool of contractors who are off-duty police officers who we'll utilize," Tuck said. One challenge is when a trial requires two officers to sit in a trial over several days. "Obviously we can't use them anywhere else, so we have to shuffle other people around, but we've always done that. For us it's like clockwork."