Page 48 - CLT102620

48 ¦ OCTOBER 26, 2020 CLOSING ARGUMENT

EDITORIAL BOARD

Clearing Up Some Issues Regarding Jury
Trials in Connecticut
The COVID-19 pandemic struck our state
in earnest five months ago. We all sat back
and gave wide berth to our government as it
operated in emergency mode trying to stabilize a
variety of sectors of our society with the primary
goal of ensuring public safety. That is a task that
cannot be undertaken in isolation. The state of
Connecticut judicial branch’s leadership must
have the elasticity and flexibility to also ensure its
responsibilities are duties and its constitutional
duties satisfied.
Presently, Connecticut is running its trial court
system both in person and on a virtual platform. be enforced just as a subpoena to a courthouse for
The matters that are live and in-person are the pri- a specific date and time. Any third party choosing
ority-one matters with which we are so familiar. In to avoid a subpoena certainly has more excuses
the courthouse, all wear masks and are kept, if the than a student who is late to school, to get out of
courthouse permits, at a distance from each other. enforcement. The administration must propose an
The rest of the trial court system, to the extent that appropriate remedy to this problem whether it be
proceedings are being held, is operating on a vir- statutory change or executive order.
tual platform.
The judges need a share file system (think Drop-
Here is what we have learned from the current box), so documents can be delivered pre-hearing
circumstance of a dual court system. You can see efficiently, and most importantly so rebuttal ex-
everyone better on the virtual platform than in hibits can be submitted smoothly and instantly
the remaining live matters since no one is masked without crippling the flow of testimony. The ad-
on the computer. The judges are still in the court- ministrations handbook for virtual hearings
house, though. This is a tremendous disconnect provides litigants access to screen sharing, but that
and is counterintuitive to the notion that the vir- would not provide the court instant access to the
tual platform is the safe way to run a court system document once it is no longer screen shared.
during the time of COVID.
We find it particularly offensive that senior
Since we are all now dependent on this model, judges and judge trial referees are being encour-
with the heavy emphasis on virtual court for the aged to work without compensation. The current
administration of justice, it is incumbent on the
judicial branch to immediately provide direction judicial administration has declined to recall
(including proposing statutory and rule changes these judges apparently because it would be un-
as may be necessary) for the following concerns: seemly to pay them when there are still judges
The ability to subpoena a non-party to virtual on the payroll not doing much at home. Some of
proceeding is not known. The handbook for virtu- these senior judges and JTRs sit on dockets that
al hearings say a subpoena to that proceeding will need attention, including the Regional Family

CONNECTICUT
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