Queens Bar leader says in-person trial restart ‘risks the lives’ of court visitors
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One criminal jury trial has taken place in Queens since mid-March 2020. Eagle file photo by David Brand
By David Brand
The president of the Queens County Bar Association blasted a plan to resume in-person jury trials later this month, telling state leaders the restart “risks the lives” of attorneys, litigants and their loved ones.
QCBA President Clifford Welden outlined his criticism in a letter to New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and Gov. Andrew Cuomo Monday. The organization sent the letter to all its members Thursday, less than three weeks before jury trial are set to resume March 22.
In his message, Welden cited the persistent threat of COVID-19 and said “returning to in-person jury trials now on any wide scale plan risks the lives of litigants and attorneys as well as those called to jury duty and those at-risk family members who they may reside with at home.”
Queens court staffers have continued to test positive for the coronavirus throughout the pandemic, including a court officer in the Kew Gardens criminal court building Feb. 28.
DiFiore and the Office of Court Administration said jury trials will resume outside New York City on March 22. OCA is aiming to resume criminal trials in the five boroughs that day as well.
However, just 14 percent of New Yorkers have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, Cuomo said Thursday.
Welden urged OCA to delay the jury trial restart until the vaccine rate rises above 50 percent statewide and 60 percent in New York City to protect people from getting the virus in confined courthouses.
“We have been working virtually for a year, for the health of our community, I ask that you wait a short while longer until the majority of our population is vaccinated against this dangerous virus that has already killed so many,” Welden said.
Just three jury trials have taken place in Queens since mid-March, when the pandemic forced OCA to suspend most in-person proceedings, including trials. During a brief November window, two civil trials and one criminal trial took place in Queens with jurors distanced in the courtroom during selection, proceeding and deliberations.
DiFiore first announced the plan to resume in-person trials on Feb. 22, as COVID rates gradually decreased statewide.
“In anticipation of this positive trend continuing, we have started developing plans to resume some in person operations, including a limited number of jury trials statewide,” DiFiore said. “Of course, it goes without saying that our plans very much depend on the continued positive trajectory of the COVID metrics.”
Several court employees and attorneys have slammed the plan, especially since attorneys, prosecutors, judges and many jurors remain ineligible for the vaccine.
“To resume trials at a time when most people have not yet been vaccinated is not only absolutely reckless; it shows the court system’s concern more with statistics than with the people needed to make it function,” said one Queens judge who asked to remain anonymous to criticize OCA without repercussions.
“Further, it belies common sense that such a decision would be made based on COVID numbers trending down, rather than on the percentage of people having been vaccinated,” the judge added.
OCA spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said state court leaders have urged Cuomo and the Health Department to make judges eligible for vaccines.
He said the jury trial restart “with the goal of slowly and methodically building back to normalcy is an imperative”
“As we did in the Fall, we will be resuming a very limited number of civil and criminal trials and as happened in the Fall, we expect that there will be participants: judges, attorneys and litigants who are eager to get to work and resolve their matters,” Chalfen said.
