Courts Try To Keep Crippled Justice System Moving With Video Hearings, Home Detentions

The New York Times: In Pandemic, Justice Dept. Seeks Video Court Hearings And Home Detention
Invoking the coronavirus crisis, the Justice Department has asked Congress to let more federal inmates serve their time at home and to steer scarce masks and testing kits to federal prisons ahead of other agencies, according to draft legislation submitted last week to congressional leaders. The department has also asked Congress to relax speedy trial rules and expand opportunities for law enforcement officials to use video conferencing for certain preliminary federal criminal and detention proceedings, like arraignments for newly arrested people. (Savage, 3/23)

The Wall Street Journal: Barr Strives To Keep Justice Moving Amid Coronavirus Crisis
Attorney General William Barr keeps a thermometer on his desk so he can take his temperature every time he prepares to go to the White House. As with every aspect of American life, the coronavirus has upended the Justice Department and the way its more than 113,000 employees across the country work, including the attorney general. More federal courts are drastically reducing operations, prisons are grappling with how to handle infections among inmates and criminal cases have stalled. (Gurman, 3/23)

ABC News: How Coronavirus Is Crippling Courts And Raising Concerns Among Civil Liberties Advocates 
The rapid spread of novel coronavirus throughout America’s communities has crippled courts across the country as judges, attorneys and defendants trying to come to grips with how to achieve justice under the law while balancing public safety concerns amid ​a pandemic. In conversations with ABC News, current and former judges, attorneys and public defenders painted a sobering picture: ​jury trials discontinued, ongoing cases significantly delayed, a scramble for technological work-arounds and empty courthouses nationwide as some judges issue rulings from home. (Mallin, Barr and Dwyer, 3/24)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: California Trials Delayed; L.A. County Courts Closed To Public
Criminal and civil trials were discontinued in California for at least two months after a sweeping order was issued late Monday by the state’s chief justice that aims to sharply cut down public traffic in state courthouses during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said in her order that court facilities were “ill-equipped to effectively allow the social distancing and other public health requirements” that have been imposed across California to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Hamilton and Queally, 3/23)

ABC News: Despite Coronavirus Warnings, Federal Bureau Of Prisons Still Transporting Inmates 
Despite the federal government’s guidance to stay inside and many states’ stay-in-place orders, the Bureau of Prisons is still moving inmates from facility to facility, internal documents obtained by ABC News show. One document, written to staff at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, says that inmate movement is suspended for 30 days, but at the end adds, “Other case-by-case exceptions for judicial proceedings [are to] be brought to the attention of the appropriate Regional Counsel for consideration.” (Barr, 3/23)

WBUR: When Inmates Die Of Poor Medical Care, Jails Often Keep It Secret 
A WBUR investigation found that when people suffered from dire medical conditions in Massachusetts county jails, they were often ignored or mistrusted, with fatal consequences. The sheriffs and for-profit companies increasingly responsible for inmate health care face little oversight, and often have withheld the circumstances of these deaths from the public — even from inmates’ families. (Willmsen and Healy, 3/23)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania Prison System Defies Court Order To Test Philly Death Row Inmate For The Coronavirus
Pennsylvania prison officials are defying a Philadelphia judge’s order to take a man on death row for a 1988 murder to an outside hospital for testing and treatment of coronavirus symptoms he developed this month.Lawyers for the Department of Corrections said Walter Ogrod, 55, is being adequately monitored and treated in prison medical facilities. They challenged the court’s jurisdiction to interfere with prison system operations in the context of a criminal case. (Roebuck, 3/23)