New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
‘Waiting for their day in court’
Attorneys anxious to get back to business of justice amid new safety rules
NEW HAVEN — Nearly three months after state courthouses were reduced to handling a severely limited number of criminal cases because of the coronavirus pandemic and some courthouses were closed completely, many defense attorneys are growing increasingly frustrated over the mounting backlog and the toll this is taking on defendants.
“The Judicial Branch has ignored private lawyers as stakeholders,’ said Jay Ruane of Ruane Attorneys in Shelton.
“Our complaints are falling on deaf ears,” Ruane said. “We’re 10 weeks into this and they’ve done nothing except saying ‘We’re working on it.’’
Ruane said he has 47 criminal cases pending in Meriden Superior Court, whose courthouse has been closed since mid-March.
Moreover, Ruane said, “We have 13 attorneys in our firm with700 criminal cases pending in
Connecticut.”
The state Judicial Branch administers the court system.
Because of the delays and backlogs, Ruane said, “Our clients are being kept in jail longer. They’re sitting there, waiting for their day in court.”
Ruane is concerned that when defendants finally do get hearings, they will be more inclined to plead guilty rather than fight the charges because they need to get back to their jobs and other facets of their lives.
New Haven Public Defender Beth Merkin, whose office is at New Haven Superior Court, noted: “This holding pattern is a problem. Our clients are sitting in jail and there’s little movement or activity on their cases. And it’s a horrible time to be incarcerated.”
Seven Connecticut inmates have died from COVID-19 and hundreds more have tested positive. The most recent inmate death was a 60-year-old man held at Osborn Correctional Institution, according to the state Department of Correction.
But there are signs of a slow return to expanded operations in the courthouses. Chief Court Administrator and Judge Patrick Carroll III recently issued a news release that announced a “partial resumption of operations” in three courthouses that will reopen June 8; the Middlesex Judicial District Courthouse in Middletown, Rockville’s Geographic Area No. 19 Courthouse and the Litchfield Judicial District Courthouse in Torrington.
But some courthouses, including the one in Meriden, will remain closed, Carroll said, “until further notice.”
Ten courts in Connecticut’s state system have stayed open throughout the pandemic, although with cutbacks in hours and in the types of cases handled. These are the Supreme and Appellate courts; the Judicial District courthouses in Bridgeport, New Britain, New Haven and New London; the Geographical Area courthouses in Hartford and Waterbury; and the juvenile courts in Hartford and Bridgeport.
The courthouses that have remained open are operating on limited hours: Mondays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Those courthouses will continue to be closed Tuesdays and Thursdays “until further notice.”
Safety
Carroll said the open courthouses will continue to handle only “priority one business.” This includes arraignments of defendants held on bond; arraignments of defendants in domestic violence cases; emergency child custody matters; and juvenile detention hearings.
“The Judicial Branch we left behind as this crisis emerged will not be the same Judicial Branch we return to,” Carroll said.
“Masks, social distancing, hand sanitizers, limitations on the number of people allowed in courtrooms and courthouses and enhanced sanitization protocols are all going to be with us for the foreseeable future,” the judge said. “The remote processing and handling of court matters via video conference will now be routine components of the court system.”
Carroll added, “This remains a fluid situation and frankly, there are some issues for which we don’t yet have solutions. Our planning process will be deliberate and careful, guided by the desire to provide for the health and safety of everyone who works in or enters a courthouse. There is no other way to do it.”
Carroll was asked by the New Haven Register to address the complaints of private criminal defense attorneys such as Ruane that the Judicial Branch has not communicated well with them.
“Everything we have done, we have immediately posted to our Judicial Branch website. Nothing could be more transparent,” Carroll said in an email.
As for the frustrations over when the courthouses might return to a semblance of normal operations, Carroll said: “Given the nature of COVID-19, it is impossible to speculate when the Judicial Branch will return to full operations.
“Our goal is to resume court operations in as many courthouses as possible as quickly as possible but there are a myriad of public health and logistical issues which must be addressed,” Carroll said. “The resumption of business in currently closed facilities is largely dependent upon guidance from public health officials and implementation of safety measures that must be in place.”
Carroll said “we are making steady progress toward that goal.”
Rights
But criminal defense attorney Michael Mosowitz, based in New Haven, said he and his clients are “extremely frustrated” over the pace of the judicial system’s restart. He said he hasn’t been in a courthouse since mid-March, when the closures occurred.
“Everybody’s waiting,” he said. “It’s opening too slowly for people’s Constitutional rights.”
Moscowitz said he represents a defendant, a New Haven man, who is charged with robbery and assaulting a prison guard. A hearing on his competency to stand trial was ordered in March but “we can’t get to a hearing. He’s being held at a correctional facility on $150,000 bond and he has asked for a hearing on reducing his bond. But we can’t do that until we stipulate his competency.”
“He’s been in jail for close to a year and he tested positive for the coronavirus,” Moscowitz said. “They’re keeping him isolated. But I can’t do anything to help him.”
Moscowitz later called back to report a competency hearing has been scheduled for June 10.
Ruane spoke of similar situations with his cases. “I have plenty of clients who are in jail with cases pending.”
Ruane cited Asante Gaines, 23, who was arrested in January because police said he was linked with a shooting outside a Bridgeport courthouse that left four people wounded. But Gaines was charged with breach of peace and interfering with an officer. His bond was set at $5,000; he can’t afford to post it and get out of jail while he continues to wait for his case to be heard. His next court date is listed as Aug. 19.
“Every couple of weeks he calls me from jail and asks, ‘What’s going on?’” Ruane said. “His charges are relatively minor but they caused him to be violated on his parole. But he can’t get a parole hearing.”
Ruane, like Moscowitz, noted Constitutional issues are at stake. Ruane said: “If you are charged with a crime, you have a fundamental right to confront your accuser.”
Moscowitz said Carroll’s list of courthouses set to open June 8 should have included the one in Meriden. Compared with the soon-to-be-reopened courthouses in Rockville and Torrington, Moscowitz noted, “Meriden has a much heavier caseload.”
Technology
The attorneys also expressed dismay over what they said is some of the technological limitations of the state court system.
“In federal court,” Moscowitz said, “if I have a hearing, all I have to do is go on Zoom (an online video meeting service).
“The state courts need to convert to Zoom so that the courts are accessible to everyone,” he said. “They need to open Zoom to the public. We have modern technology but they’re not taking advantage of it. They need to take bold steps.”
Moscowitz wants to do that June 10 competency on Zoom but he said he was told he must come to the courthouse and do a teleconference there.
Moscowitz and Ruane said they think the state’s courts also need to allow attorneys to file criminal case motions electronically, via email. This is now allowed for civil cases.
Carroll responded that “technical limitations of legacy systems limit the opportunities for electronic filing by external users.”
But he said “a new criminal/ motor vehicle case management system has been under development for months.”
As for Zoom, Carroll said it is not being used because of security risks. “We have successfully deployed and utilized other video conference programs, including WEBEX and Microsoft Teams to conduct a wide range of video conferenced proceedings across all divisions.”
New Haven State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin said his office’s conference room has been converted into an “arraignments room” with a camera and screen linked to the main courtroom in New Haven Superior Court. Arraignments are handled three days a week.
“The judge sits in the courtroom with a Judicial District court reporter and a clerk,” Griffin said. “It’s worked very efficiently.”
A New Haven public defender has a similar set-up in that office for use during those hearings. The defendant is also involved with the same remote set-up from where he or she is being held.
Griffin said, “I think we’ll be operating remotely for the foreseeable future.” But he noted that when sentencings resume, victims and their families will have the right to be “present” and to be heard. Griffin said the new rules about social distancing will have to be addressed.
Trials
But Griffin noted the Judicial Branch has suspended jury trials “until further notice.” He was reluctant to predict when they could resume.
Moscowitz said jury cases are an important part of the case backlog. “We’re dependent on jurors. But will they be willing to come into the courthouse?”
Ruane noted a trial by a jury of one’s peers is a fundamental legal right for Americans. “But how are you going to put 30 strangers in a room for jury selection? Nobody’s going to want to show up for jury duty.”
Carroll called jury trials “an especially challenging issue.” He cited “a broad range of logistical and public health considerations” to be addressed before trials can resume.
“We all share the common goal of getting the jury system back up and running as quickly as possible,” he added. “However, it would be imprudent to speculate as to when there will be a resumption of jury trials in Connecticut. There is no easy solution.”
Ruane raised a related issue: the sheer volume of people, many of them family members of victims and defendants, who customarily have flocked to the courthouses at 10 a.m. every weekday, the common time for pretrial cases to be heard.
“You have this massive influx of people,” Ruane said. “You amass a ton of bodies in a small courtroom to dispose of justice in two-to-three-minute clips. That’s not going to be healthy for anybody. Judges might be at risk because of their age.”
Asked if he has concerns for his own safety, Ruane replied, “Absolutely. I have to be able to provide for my own health and safety. I have family; I have kids. How can I maintain social distancing with my clients? They’re coming from jail, a high risk situation. How are they going to protect us?”
He said his father, James Ruane, is an attorney too but is over 70 years old, in a high risk category for COVID-19. “I don’t want to send him to a courthouse and put him at risk. I told him, ‘You can’t go. You’re officially retired until this is resolved.’ He said he wants to go in and fight for his clients.”
Carroll said that in addition to requiring masks, Plexiglas barriers and hand sanitizer stations are being installed in the courthouses. Also, there will be a limit on the number of people allowed on an elevator at the same time.
“We also continue to review a myriad of other options such as staggered dockets and a significant expansion of court matters and proceedings being handled by virtual and remote means,” Carroll said.
Griffin asserted: “We feel confident in my office that when the ‘Go’ order is given for expansion, we’ll be ready.”
“We’ll be living with the threat of this pandemic certainly through the winter,” Griffin said. “The challenge for the Judicial Branch is to fashion a plan that’s safe, efficient and fair.”