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Law360 (August 28, 2020, 6:26 PM EDT) -- Pennsylvania's largest court system is preparing to start trying criminal cases next month for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic largely shuttered courthouse operations across the state in mid-March.
The Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas has sent out 1,500 summonses, more than three times the usual number, in efforts to attract a large enough number of potentially virus-leery respondents to pick a jury for a criminal trial scheduled to get underway Sept. 8.
As for civil trials, court officials said they won't come until next year.
"These folks will be coming in to do justice in a criminal proceeding where life and liberty are at stake as opposed to dollars and cents," Judge Jacqueline Allen said of the jurors slated to report next month.
The Philadelphia County courts suspended the bulk of their operations in mid-March as a result of the then-burgeoning pandemic, with limited exceptions for certain vital criminal proceedings and family proceedings.
While most jurisdictions largely followed suit in shutting down their operations, counties across the commonwealth have one by one been starting to move ahead with criminal trials over the summer.
Berks County became the first jurisdiction in the state in mid-June to hold a jury trial since the shutdown in March.
As Philadelphia prepares to become the next, Judge Allen, who serves as the administrative judge of the court's trial division, said staff had retrofitted four courtrooms on two floors of the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice with plexiglass shields, and jurors will be spaced out in the gallery rather than being seated in the jury box.
In order to minimize the number of people moving throughout the building, she said jurors will be subject to voir dire via teleconference while remaining in the jury assembly room on the building's first floor.
She said masking requirements will be enforced and hand sanitizing stations had been set up throughout the building.
In pre-pandemic times, she said the court typically sends out 500 summonses for a single trial in hopes of netting 80 respondents, and that there could be as many as 300 prospective jurors in the Center for Criminal Justice on any given day.
In order to account for a higher-than-expected number of no-shows and excusals, Judge Allen said the court sent out 1,500 summonses for the trial expected to start Sept. 8, and that about 182 had responded so far signaling they intend to show up.
--Editing by Stephen Berg.
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