Jury trials returning successfully

WEST CHESTER » The experiment in Chester County’s Court of Common Pleas to resume criminal and civil jury trials with COVID-19 safety precautions and social distancing appears to have been successful, those associated with the proceedings say.

On Wednesday, a jury sitting before Judge Jacqueline Carroll

Cody returned with a verdict of guilty on most charges against a Coatesville man accused of stabbing another man in the chest, nearly killing him, during a street side encounter in the city in 2018.

The jury deliberated about 2 ½ hours before returning with guilty verdicts on charges of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and possession of an instrument of crime against 36-year-old Pablo Colon.

It was the second criminal jury trial held in the county — and the third such trial overall — since President Judge John Hall ordered the proceedings to begin again after having shut the jury trials down as the coronavirus pandemic swept into the county in late March and early April.

“The feedback has generally been positive,” said Hall in a brief interview in his chambers in the county Justice Center Friday. “We have now had multiple jury trials, both civil and criminal, all of August, all with COVID safety prevention measures in place.”

In the proceedings, the jury panels are chosen in one of the county’s three largest courtrooms, with panelists sitting several feet from one another and all wearing masks — as are the attorneys, courtroom staff, deputy sheriff’s and the presiding judge.

The trial itself is then held on one of two courtrooms: Courtroom Two in the Justice Center, with its gallery of portraits of the county’s judges from its earliest beginnings to the present and the iconic “Justice in Chester County” mural on display, and the ornately furnished Courtroom One in the county’s Historic Courthouse on North High Street.

In the two trials that Cody has presided over for criminal defendants in August, jury members sat at a distance from one another and largely outside the

bounds of the jury box, all wearing plastic face shields. Witnesses testified from behind a plexiglass shield, and wearing a face mask, while the attorneys sat several feet across the courtroom to maintain the proper social distancing recommended by the county’s Health Department to lessen concerns about the possible spread of COVID-19.

The attorneys conducted their questioning of witnesses and their arguments to the jury from behind a lectern several feet across the courtroom from both. When sworn in before their testimony, witnesses did not touch the pages of the courtroom Bible, only being asked whether they promised to tell the truth

Hall said that even though the panels of potential jurors had been asked about any worries they had about the virus that might keep them from hearing the cases fairly, few, if any, of those called had asked to opt out of the proceedings for that reason.

“This has been a tribute to the jurors who have served,” Hall said. “They, as

well as the rest of us, have stepped up in this time of a pandemic to insure that justice is being served in the county. And its been a magnificent job by the county Court Administration staff an the rest of those involved.”

Chester County is among a few of the counties in the region that have resumed jury trials since March. No juries have been called in neighboring Delaware and Montgomery counties, although other court proceedings have restarted. There have been a few jury trials in Berks and Bucks counties, and none at all in Philadelphia since March.

The court in West Chester has scheduled a series of potential jury trials before select judges each week for the remainder of the year, Hall said. They range from homicides to drug possession cases. Hall said the number of such trials would be limited until he and the county Court Administration staff receive a recommendations form the county Health Department that the risk of COVID-19 spread has sufficiently diminished. But there is little agreement as to when that might be, and fears of a resurgence of coronavirus cases in the remains on the

horizon.

In the case of Commonwealth vs. Colon, the accused was charged with pulling a knife on a 23-yearold man, Khalil Knight, during an encounter on Nov. 3, 2018, in the 700 block of east Lincoln Highway. A video tape taken from security cameras in the vicinity allowed the jurors to get a first-hand look at what happened.

The attorney for Colon, Stuart Crichton of the law firm of Donatoni & Crichton, argued that his client had acted in self defense after Knight displayed what appeared to be a semi-automatic handgun during the confrontation. The weapon, retrieved by Coatesville police officers who witnessed the stabbing, turned out to be a realistic looking BBgun, but Colon had no way of knowing that when he sought to protect himself, Crichton said in his closing argument.

“The gun was flashed,” he said. “(Knight) challenged my client because he had something to show him,. He had something for him.” Colon did not know Knight before the encounter, and had no reason to attack him other than self-defense. “He did not have the intent to kill Khalil.”

Colon, who testified in his own behalf, said that Knight had tried to sell him drugs on the street while he was walking with family members, leading to the confrontation.

Assistant District Attorney Myles Matteson, who prosecuted the case along with Assistant District Attorney Stefanie Friedman, argued that Colon had gone after Knight because he was angry with him and meant to hurt him.

“Life is a game of inches,” Matteson recounted a doctor who treated Knight saying, and the knife Colon admitted wielding came “within inch of (Knight’s) heart. Now the defendant wants to get away with it, and has invented this story blaming the victim. It is a lie.”

The jury’s verdict showed they rejected Colon’s contention of acting in self-defense, but also that the prosecution had not proven he intended to kill Knight. In the end, however, Colon will face the same possible maximum sentence of 10 to 20 years in state prison for the first degree felony of aggravated assault.