By Matthew Santoni

Law360 (July 24, 2020, 6:26 PM EDT) -- The president judge of Pennsylvania's Fifth Judicial District, which covers Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, ordered parts of the criminal, family and magisterial district courts temporarily closed and suspended all in-person criminal court hearings Friday after another attorney there tested positive for COVID-19.

Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas President Judge Kim Berkeley Clark issued an order late Thursday closing the third and fifth floors of the Allegheny County Courthouse, where most of the criminal division judges practice, along with the office that handles protection-from-abuse petitions in the family division courthouse across the street and a magisterial district judge's office in the suburbs.

By Friday afternoon, she issued an updated emergency order declaring that the last in-person proceedings in the criminal division would move exclusively online or be postponed.

"Until further order of court, no in-person hearings or proceedings will occur in the criminal division," Judge Clark's order said. "Any hearing or proceeding in the criminal division that cannot be conducted remotely through Microsoft Teams shall be continued."

Bail hearings, motions, guilty pleas, sentencing hearings, probation violation hearings, non-jury trials and other proceedings will be conducted exclusively via videoconference until further notice, Friday's order said.

Though the orders did not say why the courts were being closed, they came at the same time that the court administration announced that an attorney tested positive for COVID-19 just days after visiting them.

"The attorney was last in the Family Law Center on July 22, 2020 and July 21, 2020, primarily in the PFA area," the announcement from court administration said. "On July 20, 2020, the attorney appeared in the courtroom of Judge Bruce R. Beemer in the Allegheny County Courthouse."

The defense attorney, who was not identified, had been in the magisterial district courts of Judge Kim Hoots in Wilkinsburg for the morning session Thursday, and in Judge Roxanne Sakoian Eichler's courtroom in North Versailles during the afternoon, the announcement said. Judge Eichler's court, which serves the communities of East McKeesport, North Versailles, Trafford, Wall and Wilmerding, was temporarily closed.

With the court for obtaining temporary protection-from-abuse orders closed at least until Monday, the judge said those orders could instead be filed as emergency orders with local magistrates or at the Pittsburgh Municipal Court, and emergency orders granted over the weekend would remain in effect until the PFA department reopens.

The court will provide training to attorneys who need help conducting hearings via Microsoft Teams or e-filing court documents, Friday's order said.

The orders came two weeks after Judge Clark had pressed judges and attorneys in the county to hold as many proceedings as possible online amid Allegheny County's upswing in coronavirus cases, which had started in late June and saw new cases in the triple digits nearly every day since. Members of the criminal defense bar had voiced concerns that the courts weren't doing enough to test people coming into buildings or notify others when someone in the court was diagnosed.

"It's an ongoing struggle; I can't say the defense bar or members of the criminal litigation section are satisfied — they're very upset about everything," said Thomas N. Farrell of Farrell & Associates, chair of the Allegheny County Bar Association's criminal litigation section. "We want to make sure things are done better, in a safer manner. ... The administration's been taking positive steps, but most members want to see more."

Farrell said attorneys he spoke with wanted to see temperature checks at every entrance to the courthouse and for every magistrate's court. He also told Law360 before the Friday afternoon order that some judges in the county were continuing to insist on holding hearings in-person that could be done remotely.

Farrell praised the Pittsburgh Municipal Court, which hosts many of the preliminary hearings for criminal cases in the city, for its measures to reduce in-person contact by establishing separate entrances for police and visitors, and creating a more detailed schedule so that fewer people were in the courtroom at a time, rather than large crowds waiting for their cases to be called.

Court administrators had previously emphasized that they have been conducting their own contact tracing for employees who had been diagnosed with coronavirus or had been close to someone who was, and was recommending self-quarantines on a stricter basis than health officials.

Representatives for the court administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

--Editing by Adam LoBelia.

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