ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — After being suspended for nearly a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, criminal jury trials are scheduled to resume Monday under heightened health and safety restrictions in St. Louis County Circuit Court in Clayton.
To comply with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the St. Louis County Department of Public Health and operating directives issued by the Supreme Court of Missouri in May 2020, the 21st Circuit could not conduct jury trials until viral transmission risk factors had subsided.
The 21st Circuit has partnered with health and safety experts, including an epidemiologist, to prepare courtrooms and other shared spaces to reduce the risk of exposure to the coronavirus.
“We have instituted numerous measures recommended by health professionals to protect the health and safety of everyone who must participate in criminal trials – from jurors to attorneys to jail personnel and members of the public,” said Presiding Judge Michael D. Burton. “Just like defendants, victims and their families, we have been eagerly awaiting the moment trials can finally proceed in the safest environment possible.”
Though the court cannot require its employees, judges, outside attorneys, litigants or jurors to be vaccinated, everyone who enters the courthouse must have their temperature taken, wear a mask at all times and observe social distance. Anyone with a fever of more than 101 degrees will not be allowed into the building.
To conform with sanitation, social distancing and indoor capacity recommendations, three courtrooms will be used for each trial: one to conduct the trial itself; a second for spectators, families, witnesses and media to observe the live proceedings via a closed-circuit video feed; and a third for jury recesses and deliberations.
Plastic shields have been installed at the judge’s bench, attorney tables, court reporter and bailiff’s stations. Jurors will be assigned numbered seats in the jury box and the area spectators normally sit to ensure safe social distancing. Each courtroom will be sanitized daily, and witness tables and microphones wiped down between each speaker.
The court will give priority to the cases of defendants in the county jail and the Missouri Department of Corrections who have been charged with serious felonies and who have filed speedy trial motions. The right of an accused confined person to a speedy trial is guaranteed by the Missouri and U.S. constitutions. Missouri statutes and Supreme Court rules set specific limits on the time within which either the defendant must be brought to trial or the case must be resolved or dismissed.
Because those limits were exceeded during the pandemic, these cases will be given priority. About 100 cases are scheduled to go to trial and have been assigned to the court’s circuit judges to be tried in the coming months.