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Law360 (November 17, 2020, 6:05 PM EST) -- Just two months after criminal trials resumed in Pennsylvania's largest court system following the onset of the pandemic earlier this year, officials said Tuesday they are once again shutting down jury proceedings in the face of spiking coronavirus infections across the country.
A spokesman for the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas confirmed Tuesday afternoon that jury trials, which are held in the city's Stout Center for Criminal Justice, are being shut down until January "out of an abundance of caution and in keeping with the latest guidelines provided by the city's health department and mayor's office."
"Given the rising number of coronavirus cases both locally and nationally, this action enables the [court] to limit the number of people coming into the Stout Center," court spokesman Gabriel Roberts said.
The move comes after Philadelphia began holding a limited number of criminal trials in mid-September as case numbers dwindled and new precautions were put in place to help protect jurors, attorneys, litigants and court staff.
The Philadelphia County courts first suspended operations in mid-March, with limited exceptions for certain vital criminal and family court proceedings, as the pandemic first took hold in earnest in the region.
It was a move quickly followed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which ordered a statewide suspension of most courthouse operations just days later before eventually leaving it up to individual counties to decide when to begin easing up on restrictions.
Although some counties started moving forward with jury trials again in June, it wasn't until late August when Philadelphia County started sending out summonses with an eye toward resuming criminal trials in mid-September.
Officials said at the time they didn't believe civil trials would start back up again until sometime in 2021.
Outside Philadelphia, several other counties have started scaling back operations in the face of spiking COVID-19 numbers.
In Bucks County, part of the suburban ring around Philadelphia, a judge earlier this month suspended criminal trials requiring a 12-member jury, and civil trials altogether, until Jan. 1, after trials resumed following a six-month hiatus in September.
In Crawford County in northwest Pennsylvania, the president judge last week issued an order canceling the court's November trial session.
--Editing by Stephen Berg.
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