Queens Criminal Court becomes first in state to get full tech treatment
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A project to modernize the Queens Supreme Court, Criminal Term courtroom is complete, making the World’s Borough court the first in the state to be fully outfitted with modernized technological capabilities. Photo by David Handschuh
By Jacob Kaye
The Queens Supreme Court, Criminal Term courthouse is the most technologically advanced courthouse in the entire state, top court officials said in celebration this week.
Gathered in the Kew Gardens courthouse’s ceremonial courtroom on Wednesday, the chief judge, chief administrative judge and supervising and administrative judges throughout the city and state celebrated the completion of the Queens Criminal Court’s technological overhaul, which was recently completed.
Each of the courthouse’s 24 courtrooms now is outfitted with multiple monitors to display proceedings and pieces of digital evidence, several televisions to broadcast live proceedings, cameras pointed at all participants of a proceeding and audio systems with echo cancellation technology.
The courtrooms also are now equipped with headsets and live transcription for those with hearing impairments and live translation for non-English speakers.
The courthouse is the first in the state to have the tech available in each of its courtrooms.
The updates to the courthouse can be seen from the lobby of the building, which was completed in 1961. Where there once was a packet of papers fastened to a cork board listing the day’s appearances, there are now half a dozen television screens displaying which cases are on the day’s calendar.
It’s a major upgrade into the 21st century for a courthouse and court system whose technological capabilities were minimal and archaic heading into the pandemic – a time that necessitated adaptation into the virtual world.
And while Queens’ courthouse is further ahead in its technical abilities than most of the state’s other courthouses, including others in Queens, officials said on Wednesday that it is proof that the court system has found a way to use technology to better facilitate the pursuit of justice.
“All of this is for the benefit of various communities that we are all privileged to serve,” said Judge Edwina Richardson-Mendelson, the deputy chief administrative judge for Justice Initiatives. “This is access to equal justice in action.”
The Queens court’s $2 million tech reboot began before the pandemic, when now-Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas was serving as the administrative judge in Queens County Supreme Court, Criminal Term.
In 2019, Zayas got the ball rolling on bringing modern audio and visual technology to the building after hearing complaints about poor quality of the tech that existed from a number of judges and staff – several years ago, one Queens judge felt the audio equipment in his courtroom was so poor, he went to music store Sam Ash to buy new ones.
Zayas partnered with former Queens District Attorney Richard Brown to figure out a path to modernization. Brown died later that year, and Melinda Katz, who was elected to the Queens DA’s seat in a special election, picked up the cause – over half of the project’s cost was covered by federal forfeiture funds provided by the DA’s office.
After Zayas’ departure to the Appellate Division, Second Department, former Administrative Judge George Grasso continued the project and current Administrative Judge Donna-Marie Golia brought it to its finish.
A number of court officials and staff saw the project to the finish line over the years, including Chief Clerk William Reyes, Chief Technology Officer Sheng Guo and Queens Technical Manager Michael Cheung.
Zayas, who said on Wednesday that he was excited to be back in the courthouse he ran for about a decade, said that collaboration was at the heart of the courhouse’s modernization and is at the heart of both his and Chief Judge Rowan Wilson’s approach to running the state’s court system.
Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas speaks in the courthouse he formerly oversaw to celebrate the completion of a tech modernization project that began under his leadership in 2019. Photo by David Handschuh
“This project epitomizes what collaboration means,” the chief administrative judge said. “Because collaboration, though it takes a lot of time and it involves the exchange of various views and sometimes conflicting views, we are convinced in our leadership team that it ultimately produces the best outcomes.”
“That collaboration is what has happened here,” he added.
Wilson echoed the sentiment, albeit in dryer prose that he had “written” using ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chat bot. After reading through the A.I.-generated remarks for what he said would be both the first and last time, the chief judge issued a warning – technology in the courtroom should be used in a way to better the administration of justice, but not in a way that interferes with it.
“Technology has to serve us, and not the other way around,” Wilson said. “It’s not how fast we get things done but the quality that’s important.”
While the Queens may be the first to have fully modernized a courthouse, it’s a project that did not happen quickly.
To outfit each room with the tech, courtrooms had to be shut down for two weeks each. Judges had to be shuffled around, equipment had to be secured and contractors needed to be brought on.
In total, the project took around two and a half years to complete.
New tech in Queens Criminal Court’s courtrooms include cameras pointed at each participant in any given proceeding. Photo by David Handshcuh
Officials said on Wednesday that the project’s benefits will reach all judges, court staff, prosecutors, defense attorneys and court users, and will reshape the way proceedings are held in the World’s Borough.
As pandemic restrictions began to ease in recent years, Katz said that she was an advocate for holding live proceedings, because she believed an element of jury trials and other proceedings get lost over a screen.
She said on Wednesday that the upgrades to the courthouse marry virtual and in-person proceedings in a way that increases access to justice, rather than retract from it.
“I believe that this combination of partnership of technology and live is probably one of the best partnerships and collaborations that we could have come to,” Katz said. “We hit the sweet spot.”
