PANDEMIC JUSTICE
Murder trials derailed as courts add extra protection to safeguard public during COVID-19 pandemic
Daniel Topp, president of the Windsor-essex Criminal Lawyers' Association, wears a mask Friday outside Superior Court, where some proceedings have resumed with new safety measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. “Trials have returned and, most importantly, they've returned in a safe way,” Topp says.
With high-backed office swivel chairs generously spaced out across the public gallery floor, giant TV monitors set up along the walls and additional speakers laid out for improved sound, a usually sombre and serious Windsor courtroom looks more like it's about to host an e-gamer battle than a murder trial.
“Trials have returned and, most importantly, they've returned in a safe way,” said Daniel Topp, president of the Windsor-essex Criminal Lawyers' Association.
More than eight months after COVID-19 shut down Ontario's criminal courtrooms for in-person appearances — and then saw them only gradually reopen, months later — downtown Windsor's Superior Court of Justice was set to host its first jury trial this past week.
In preparation, two courtrooms recently had their public gallery benches — heavy steel rows of hard seating affixed to the floor — ripped out. The jury box, with its typically cramped double-row of seating near the judge's bench and witness stand, would remain empty during the anticipated lengthy trial of accused killer Jitesh Bhogal.
The 12 jurors and two alternates, typical of a murder trial, would instead sit in the well-spaced office chairs — high-back, soft ones in one courtroom — in what is normally the area set aside for public spectators, including family and friends of the parties involved, as well as media and others. Two other courtrooms were to be utilized as “overflow” rooms for the selection of jurors from among a pool of citizens called in, as well as for trial spectators who would witness the proceedings remotely via audio and video feed.
“Throughout COVID-19 we have remained focused on keeping Ontarians safe and maintaining the administration of justice,” Brian Gray, spokesman for Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General, said in an email.
Normally, up to 100 or more citizens are called into the courthouse for what can usually be a daylong vetting process leading to the selection of a jury of peers before the start of the actual trial. For Windsor's first jury trial since March, a full five days of court time had been set aside just to accommodate that process using smaller pools of prospective jurors.
Just days before the jury selection in the Boghal case was to begin on Nov. 30, however, the provincial government announced no jury trials would proceed in regions not designated as being in green status. Windsor's status is currently red, three zones above the lowest of five public health safety levels.
Bhogal has been in custody since his August 2018 arrest in Washington State. He's charged with first-degree murder, aggravated sexual assault, break and enter and choking in the brutal slaying two months earlier of Autumn Taggart, 31, in her Windsor home. The trial, scheduled to last eight weeks, has now been pushed back to next May.
There has been a Windsor murder trial during COVID-19. Danny Ahmadi, charged with second-degree murder in the Ganatchio Trail slaying of senior Sara Anne Widholm, agreed to a judge-alone trial, and Ontario's attorney general, due to the exceptional circumstances surrounding the pandemic, provided the necessary consent. The trial without jury took place in Chatham, Ahmadi was found guilty, and a sentencing hearing is set for January in Windsor.
All the Windsor courtrooms currently in use are Plexiglas mazes, with the judge, defence and Crown counsel, court officers and the accused all separated from one another by walls of clear plastic. Any courthouse visitors, in addition to regular security screening upon entry, are now also required to fill out a health form before gaining access, and masks must be worn at all times.
Floor markings show where people can walk and in which direction, water fountains are shut, seating and washroom plans restrict numbers and, as part of what the ministry's Gray describes as “enhanced cleaning protocols,” cleaning staff are called in after every appearance by a witness to sanitize ahead of the next witness.
“I believe the courts are safe now — and even if we went to grey,” said Topp, referring to the highest risk level in Ontario's colour map of COVID-19 health risk.
Windsor even went the extra yard, he said, with the defence and Crown counsel tables moved sideways, rather than facing the judge, so that jurors — whenever they return in their new location at the back of the room — will be able to see the trial lawyers speaking instead of the backs of their heads.