Case clearances plummet

Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 drastically reduced the court space available for criminal proceedings, forcing 22 felony courts to operate in just 12 courtrooms. Since 2018, caseloads have increased 82 percent. Amid the pandemic, juries assemble under strict social distancing protocol, a process the county’s district court administrator, Clay Bowman, called “laborious, expensive, and severely limiting.”