Queens’ first jury trial in nine months is over. There won’t be another one until 2021.

The judge’s bench inside the queens criminal courthouse’s ceremonial courtroom, where the last trial of 2021 wrapped up monday. eagle file photo by david brand

By David Brand

Queens’ first criminal jury trial in nearly nine months wrapped up Monday. It’s the last time jurors will enter the courthouse until, well, who knows.

The 10-day trial started a day before state court leaders suspended most in-person proceedings indefinitely, but ordered ongoing trials to continue to their conclusion.

Thus, 12 jurors and four alternates from across the borough continued to make their way to the Kew Gardens courthouse, where they observed proceedings inside a remodeled ceremonial courtroom.

The scene, reported exclusively by the Eagle earlier this month, featured layers of plexiglass partitions, jurors sitting scattered across the gallery instead of the jury box, and TVs and microphones broadcasting proceedings to everyone inside the cavernous room. 

After about two hours of deliberations, the jurors convicted defendant Robert Harris of second-degree criminal trespass for a 2018 Jamaica home invasion.

Justice Ira Margulis handed down a 364-day sentence immediately after the jury returned their verdict Monday night. Harris had already spent about two years behind bars awaiting trial, so the sentence amounted to time-served.

None of the 12 jurors or four alternates dropped out, despite the recent spike in COVID positivity rates throughout much of Queens, Margulis said.

“I spoke to them after the trial about how they felt about being jurors now and they said that with masks, social distancing and taking temperatures that they felt quite safe with respect to the virus in the courthouse,” said Margulis, who likely presided at the final trial of his career.

A state court decision to cut nearly every judge over age 70 in New York will force Margulis into an early retirement.

Court staff and the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services set up an empty courtroom to serve as the jury room so that members could maintain a safe distance as they debated the case. That’s where jurors deliberated for two hours Monday before reaching their verdict, Margulis said. 

“We had 12 jurors and four alternates,” he said. “They all came in on time when they were supposed to and we didn’t lose one.”