With cases stacking up, Pierce County court adjusts COVID rules to get trials moving
Changes to Pierce County Superior Court guidelines in response to the pandemic mean there will be more space for trials later this month.
Come Aug. 16, jurors won’t be required to social distance, judges will return to their regular courtrooms, and jury orientation will return to the County-City Building.
“... our courtrooms will resume normal operations, except for mandatory wearing of face masks,” Superior Court officials said in a news release. “This means jurors will be in the jury boxes. They will also be using the courtroom’s jury deliberation room.”
Courts across the country suspended jury trials on and off to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and the backlogs of cases awaiting trial surged as courts limited operations in response to the public health emergency.
There are about 1,600 pending criminal cases and more than 2,200 pending civil trials, Pierce County Superior Court Administrator Chris Gaddis said. Before the pandemic a little more than 1,400 cases awaited trial, and the civil departments carry a caseload of about 450 cases, he said. There’s also a backlog of unfiled cases in the Prosecutor’s Office as a result of the pandemic that attorneys are working through.
As trials resumed with safety precautions in Pierce County, social distancing measures limited how many trials the court could hold at once.
Jurors spread throughout the gallery of the courtroom, where the public would usually sit. During deliberations they went to nearby courtrooms, where they could spread out, instead of the jury room. That meant only four, maybe five or six trials could happen at once. Now the capacity is 13 trial courtrooms.
Jury orientation was also moved to the Tacoma Armory next door. With the changes Aug. 16, jurors will go back to reporting to Room 123 of the courthouse. The number of jurors in that room will still be limited.
The court also used the Lakewood Community Center and Remann Hall as off-site locations for civil trials. Gaddis said officials are holding those locations until at least September, in case COVID-19 numbers make them necessary.
The county’s 14-day case rate per 100,000 is 176.5, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department said Tuesday.
As for masks, Superior Court guidance that took effect Aug. 3 said both vaccinated and unvaccinated court participants and staff are required to wear them.
“The exception is when speaking in a courtroom session, eating, or drinking, or for staff who are in private individual workspace,” the news release said. “... Judge or Commissioner courtroom protocol is up to the individual Judge or Commissioner and may be more restrictive based on the events occurring in the courtroom.”
That guidance is for all Superior Court locations. That includes the County-City Building, Armory, Western State Hospital, Lakewood Community Center and Remann Hall.
