State Supreme Court: Counties can decide when to return juries
Courts in Wisconsin’s 72 counties can shift back to more in-person hearings, and even jury trials, as they adopt their own approved plans to so safely, the Supreme Court has ordered.
But in the meantime, the local courts must continue following the high court’s earlier, and now extended, restrictions meant to reduce the number of people in courtrooms and slow the spread of the coronavirus.
The newest order, issued late Friday, again drew dissent from Justices Rebecca Bradley and Daniel Kelly, who opposed the court’s earlier orders to suspend various court deadlines as unconstitutional or infringing on the Legislature’s authority to set them.
“The court’s latest order continues to indefinitely suspend criminal and civil jury trials, with no consideration of the constitutional or statutory rights of litigants,” Bradley wrote.
“For the reasons expressed in my dissents to prior orders of this court, I again dissent.”
Chief Justice Patience Roggensack convened a state-wide task force earlier this month to explore ways circuit courts could safely return to operations more like those prior to the public health emergency than the very strippeddown, remote or suspended iterations in place the past two months.
The report recognized that needs and resources will vary widely among counties and recommended each form their own committees to plan a safe return to in-person court operations. Friday’s order references the report and requires counties to make those plans — which must be approved the chief judge for each county’s circuit — before the Supreme Court restrictions will be lifted.
The order includes these bare minimum elements all plans should include: proof that all key stakeholders were involved in its formation; that all people coming to court wear masks and increased provisions for sanitizing hightouch surfaces in courtrooms and related spaces.
Judges could allow witnesses to remove their masks during testimony to aid in weighing the witness’s credibility.
Jury trials are still likely a long way off in Milwaukee County, but in rural Bayfield County, Circuit Judge John P. Anderson has a jury trial set to begin Tuesday. Justices Brian Hagedorn and Annette Ziegler concurred in the order, which they described as moving “in the direction of returning to local control.” They would prefer giving counties even more flexibility.
“But we understand the importance of statewide standards as we phase back in to operating within the new normal. For these reasons, we concur.”