Coronavirus Upends Day-To-Day Operation Of Criminal Justice System

USA Today: ‘Complete Chaos’: How The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Upending The Criminal Justice System
The coronavirus pandemic has upended the day-to-day operations of the criminal justice system, raising significant questions about what incarceration and access to justice looks like as the virus reaches all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Everybody, from judges to defendants, now confronts a stark reality. Jury trials have been suspended in more than two dozen states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as in dozens more localities. Courthouses have either been restricted from the public or completely shut down. Judges, forced to ensure that the justice system does not grind to a screeching halt, have prioritized more urgent cases, with some holding hearings via video or telephone. (Phillips, 3/19)

Los Angeles Times: ‘Complete Chaos’ As Orange County Courts Reopen Amidst Coronavirus Panic
Orange County’s first attempt to hold court hearings after a brief closure due to concerns over the spread of the coronavirus descended into “complete chaos” Thursday, with packed courtrooms seeming to fly in the face of recent guidance offered by health officials, some of the county’s top legal officials said. On Monday, the Orange County Superior Court system announced the closure of all courthouses until March 27, with exceptions for emergency matters. (Queally, 3/19)

The New York Times: New York Courts Struggle To Dispense Justice In Coronavirus Era
State judges in New York are using video to preside remotely over arraignments of criminal defendants. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office has suspended prosecution of some low-level crimes. The mayor’s office has asked the courts to release some older defendants from the Rikers Island jail, where most of the city’s 5,400 inmates are housed closely together, guarded by thousands of corrections officers. Coronavirus has utterly disrupted the criminal justice system, leaving crowded courts, prisons and jails especially susceptible to the outbreak. (Feuer, Hong, Weiser and Ransom, 3/20)

ABC News: Fearing Outbreaks And Riots, Nation’s Prison And Jail Wardens Scramble To Respond To Coronavirus Threat 
As much of the nation adjusts this week to sudden and indefinite home confinement, prison and jail wardens across the U.S. are scrambling to forestall an outbreak of COVID-19 inside a crowded U.S. correctional facility. With the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world, the U.S. faces unique challenges among its roughly 2.3 million inmates as the coronavirus surges silently through all 50 states. (Francescani and Barr, 3/19)

Los Angeles Times: Activists Ask Prisons To Release At-Risk Inmates To Prevent Coronavirus Deaths
They live in overcrowded facilities, sometimes jammed into tiny spaces in groups of three. Sanitary conditions can be an afterthought. Social distancing is rarely an option. For the nearly 2.3 million people held in prisons and jails nationwide and the guards who work inside, a scramble is underway to prevent the coronavirus from seeping within. In letters to the U.S. Department of Justice and local leaders, the ACLU has called for the immediate release of inmates whose sentences would be completed within the next two years and who fall within a category deemed as particularly vulnerable: over the age 65 or having an underlying condition. (Lee, 3/19)