It’s been a little over a month now since the CJC started to slowly move its way back to some level of normalcy in the wake of the Covid Crisis. Lawyers are regularly appearing in court in person. Defendants are showing up with increased frequency (although the vast majority of courts have mercifully reduced the requirement for in-person appearances). Prosecutors are back in the courtroom and I’ll even give Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg credit for sending senior prosecutors from specialized divisions into the trial courts to help work out the docket — that is helping quite a bit, actually. Cases set for trial come with an admonishment from the judge that the trial date is real, as opposed to the aspirational dates we’ve been getting for the past year or so.
Zoom started to fade out in many courts. In some courts, it is still trickling out. In others, it’s already completely gone. Apparently maintaining the hybrid of Zoom and in-person lawyer appearances is kind of a pain in the butt for coordinators. This has resulted in a not-insignificant level of confusion amongst attorneys as they try to keep track of what courts are zooming, which ones allow it, and which ones forbid anything but zooming. Last week, I walked into a misdemeanor court and was told to walk right on back out and zoom in. The witness rooms were all taken so I went back to my car in the garage and zoomed in, only to be chastised by the judge for appearing late. That wasn’t frustrating at all.
But unfortunately, the CJC’s declaration of Victory Over Covid now appears to be premature as the Delta variant has emerged. Obviously, the Delta Variant has NOT rendered the Covid vaccines useless by any stretch of the imagination. However, as anyone who follows the actual news knows, Delta is infecting the vaccinated and using them as transmitters to continue the spread at a skyrocketing pace. Fortunately, for those of us who have had the vaccine, the effects of the Delta variant are appearing to be significantly mitigated. For those who are not vaccinated, however, Covid is just as deadly as it has ever been — if not more so.
As per usual, Texas is slow to react. Governor Greg Abbott seems to be in a thus-far-undeclared race for the Republican nomination for President in 2024 by trying to be a bigger lunatic than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis when it comes to refusing to allow mask mandates. Since there is no mask mandate, the CJC apparently can’t order people to put on masks prior to entering the building. I was in court yesterday, and although there is definitely an increase in people wearing their masks, there was a solid 40% or so who were not.
Today, Bexar County announced that is was suspending jury trials (again) for the time being in response to the rapidly accelerating Delta variant. It is my guess that other major counties will soon follow suit and/or the Texas Supreme Court will issue another emergency order, suspending jury trials across the State.
Just today, I’ve had two friends who are defense attorneys tell me that they have Covid (despite their vaccinations) and I’ve been told of a third friend who tested positive. Yesterday, District Attorney Kim Ogg announced that she had tested positive despite being vaccinated, and there are rumors of several other people in the Office being positive as well. The fire has most definitely jumped over the firewall, and the question now becomes how long it will take for the CJC to react accordingly.
I’ve had multiple two people reach out to me and ask me to blog something, imploring the judges to go back to Zoom dockets and go back ASAP. So, here you have it.
The Delta variant is scary as hell in general, and deadly terrifying for the unvaccinated. Sadly, we cannot rely on many dumb asses grown adults to get the vaccine or even wear masks, in some cases. Continuing to require in-person appearances for anyone – prosecutor, defense attorney, defendant, or court staff, is subjecting people to exposure to a virus that we would inevitably take home and expose our children to. For those of us with a child too young to be vaccinated, that’s a very frightening likelihood.
I know how frustrating this is. The past month back in the CJC has been fantastic, quite frankly. I’ve loved being back. I love working on cases with prosecutors in the same room. It has truly been an example of not realizing how you enjoy something until it is taken away from you. Don’t get me wrong, I still stand by my completely awesome DISCO plan, but when all is said and done, I’ve actually been very happy to be back in that shitty old building for the past month or so.
I don’t really want to go back to Zoom dockets, but I don’t think there is any other choice under the circumstances. Hopefully, with some of the new diversionary programs announced by Kim Ogg in June, cases will move with more ease now. But as long as the Governor refuses to look out for our safety, our only hope at the CJC is that the judges will.
So, on behalf of myself and my multitude two of my blog readers, I hope the judges will consider returning to Zoom as soon as humanly possible.
from Texas Bar Today https://ift.tt/2WZQRif
via Abogado Aly Website
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