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State judicial officials said the ongoing ban on jury trials in Orleans County was due to an engineer’s assessment found the court’s CVC was insufficient to reopen in the middle the current state of the pandemic.
Now a defense attorney and the county chief prosecutor are pointing to the same report as evidence that jury trials should resume.
Their claim marks the latest volley of unusual allies – defense lawyer David Sleigh and state lawyer Jennifer Barrett – against the justice system. In July, Sleigh filed motions to dismiss about 30 cases, arguing that the state had been “deliberately indifferent to my clients’ rights to a speedy trial.” With Barrett’s backing, he tried unsuccessfully to impeach senior judicial officials to ask them why they still hadn’t resumed normal court operations.
A senior court official said the duo’s interpretation of the engineer’s assessment ignored key logistical caveats.
Sleigh and Barrett obtained a copy of the engineer’s report on Thursday, which Sleigh shared with VTDigger.
The report, signed by Daniel Dupras of Engineering Services of Vermont and delivered to the court in August, says: “[I]In my opinion, it is confirmed that the HVAC system is sufficient ”, provided that the court follows a list of other protocols, including masking and capacity restrictions.
“I was totally baffled because the engineering studies directly contravene what the justice system said about buildings on their website and in their guidelines,” Sleigh said.
However, Senior Chief Justice Brian Grearson said it was more complicated than that: one of the report’s requirements to reopen was that the third-floor courtroom must be used both for the trial and for the deliberations of the jury.
That part, says Grearson, is what doesn’t work.
Court proceedings are carefully choreographed so jurors do not see incarcerated defendants entering the courtroom, as watching an accused enter under high security could influence the verdict. The Orleans courthouse has a specialized entrance for incarcerated defendants, and the jury usually enters the courtroom once the defendant is already seated.
While there is no other place the jury can wait outside, Grearson said, the Orleans court cannot hold a jury trial for the incarcerated defendants.
Another complicating factor, according to Grearson: Courts must prioritize the scheduling of trials for incarcerated defendants before defendants who are in their community. He said that these test requirements, along with the engineering requirements, don’t work well in the physical space.
“The report is a piece of the puzzle of reopening the court,” said Grearson. “It’s obviously a big chunk – we couldn’t do anything until we had them – but it’s about taking this report and seeing what can be done in an individual courthouse.”
Grearson said the court is considering ways to hold jury trials in Orleans at courthouses in Caledonia or Lamoille, but it takes time to implement. It is also a greater demand for public defenders and other lawyers to spread their workload over several sites.
Sleigh, Barrett and Grearson discussed these complications in a meeting Thursday. Still, Sleigh and Barrett ask why the court cannot hold trials for the non-incarcerated defendants in the meantime.
“If we have the capacity to have jury trials, there is no reason we cannot do them,” Barrett said in an interview. “So it’s interesting, because we’re in a unique situation where both the defense and the state are advocating the resumption of jury trials, and the court just wasn’t transparent with their information, and they weren’t. weren’t transparent with their explanation of why we didn’t.
Sleigh and Barrett both said long-term delays in criminal trials were bad for their business and for the integrity of the judicial process.
Sleigh said the past year and a half had been “a disaster” for his clients awaiting trial. While they are waiting, the charges affect their ability to apply for jobs or travel, or generally to go about their business.
“There is some truth in the maxim that justice delayed is justice denied,” Sleigh said. “I mean, at some point people raise their hands, give up, plead the things they haven’t done, just to get it over with.”
Barrett said that for prosecutors, long wait times make it more difficult to find witnesses and appear in court.
“The integrity of state cases is sometimes more difficult as time goes on,” Barrett said. “Not to mention that there is a victim’s right to a speedy trial, and they don’t all have one either. “
Barrett said the order in which cases should be tried first ultimately depends on the courts and can be rearranged.
“I think basically the tribunal lacked transparency with us,” Barrett said. “So it’s difficult for us to come up with a clever explanation of when and how we resume jury trials when we’re not included in the equation or don’t know why.”
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