Courtroom goes virtual for Emergency Judge Joseph Esposito

Justice Joseph Espostio served as Queens Supreme Court emergency judge last week. Photo via state court system

By David Brand

The work day began in typical fashion for Justice Joseph Esposito Thursday. He drank a cup of coffee, put on a shirt and tie and got ready to face his courtroom.

But instead of presiding from the bench, he sat before a Microsoft Surface device propped up on a table in his home. His son, a 1L student at Hofstra, helped him set up his new “courtroom.” 

A court clerk and court reporter sat in front of their own devices, and after a consultation with IT staff, Esposito was ready to hear emergency and essential matters in Queens Supreme Court. “Everybody’s home, it’s amazing,” he said.

There was just one slight hiccup: “I left my robes at the courthouse, and they don’t want us to go back in there,” Esposito said.

The state court system has completed the effort to shift all court functions to video, starting with essential and emergency matters. Esposito is one of the judges tapped to handle the cases. On Thursday, he was scheduled to hear major coronavirus-related litigation between the Department of Correction and the Correction Officers Benevolent Association, but the two parties agreed to postpone the issue for a week.

Esposito’s role Thursday and Friday marked a return to the court after he presided at one of the last trials to take place in Queens Supreme Court since the state imposed a shutdown. 

He handled a medical malpractice trial that lasted from March 10 until March 19. “I didn’t lose one juror in that time and I thought for sure jurors would get sick or be afraid to come in.”

When the trial ended late on the night of March 19, so too did most operations in the Supreme Court building. A few staff members, including administrators in the County Clerk’s Office, now work out of the Civil Courthouse next door.

The rest are pivoting to video.

“We went from a public courtroom to a virtual courtroom,” Esposito said.