Jury trials return, with a new look

Jurors will be screened via video, spaced apart as part of new process

As coronavirus numbers hover at relatively safe levels across the state, the federal and state court systems are slowly, cautiously planning a resumption of the backbone of the judicial system, jury trials, a backlog of which has accumulated since the pandemic all but closed the courts in March.

The first jury trial in the state since the pandemic began is scheduled to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport. It will be a test case — a brief, threeor four-day civil case with a minimum of participants, witnesses and jurors. At issue: whether an insurer should be absolved of paying for fire damage because a homeowner lied about what, if any, rent her niece was paying for a third-floor apartment.

Judges in the state and federal courts have been gaming out how jury trials — proceedings that, in the past, always have put crowds into often cramped courtrooms — can resume with modifications that protect health and safety while preserving the legal rights of civil litigants and criminal defendants.

The state and federal court systems are worlds apart. There are three federal courthouses in the state, fewer than 20 judges and a relatively low case volume. The state system employs more than 100 judges in dozens of courthouses which are usually crowded with thousands of cases.

The federal judges decided to start with civil trials this month because the juries are half the size of criminal juries and more easily seated. The target date for federal criminal trials — where there are often multiple defendants and a greater number of jurors are seated through a more arduous process — is early November in Hartford.

Lawyers practicing in the state courts had been resigned to having no jury trials until well into next year. Several lawyers and judges said they were stunned earlier this month when Chief Justice Richard A. Robinson announced in an opinion piece in The Hartford Courant that the state would resume both civil and criminal trials in November.

The state judiciary has been under tremendous pressure to resume operations, from private practice lawyers, whose businesses have fallen apart because of court closures, and litigants, whose cases are going unresolved. Last week, a criminal defendant filed a speedy motion trial in NewHaven, arguing the state Judicial Branch’s coronavirus shutdown has trampled his Constitutional right to put his case before a jury. Another speedy trial motion is scheduled for argument this week in New London.

Screening jurors by video

Robinson and other state court officials disclosed few details about what trials will look like in state court when they resume, saying that planning continues. They said safety of all involved is the priority.

The federal courts, where the challenge is not as great, have