The Thurston County Courthouse
Thurston County Superior Court has launched only five jury trials since last March when the county saw its first COVID-19 case.
Meanwhile, office space leased by the county in October to serve as an added courtroom and opened in December, hasn't hosted a single jury trial. The two-year lease cost the county $468,000 for the first year with an expected 3% increase the second year.
Even with the added space, the court can conduct only two trials at a time under pandemic restrictions. And those trials will not start anytime soon.
On Jan. 14, the court decided to extend its suspension of criminal jury trials through at least March 1 and civil jury trials through at least June 7. By then the court will have gone a full year under COVID-19 conditions that have created a substantial case backlog.
The scope of the backlog
As of last week, there were 167 defendants in custody who had not been sentenced in Superior Court cases, according to an email from Superior Court Administrator Pam Hartman-Beyer. That number is 37 fewer than The Olympian reported in September.
Hartman-Beyer wrote that there were 850 active pretrial cases as of last week — 122 less than in September.
Though the backlog has decreased, the number of cases in waiting remains high because jury trials remain difficult to conduct safely.
Since March 2020, only five cases have gone to trial, said Hartman-Beyer, but one of those was a mistrial. Those trials occurred in September and October when the court tried to restart jury trials, she said.
Meanwhile at District Court, 98 cases are waiting for trials while 20 defendants remain in custody, said district court administrator Jennifer Creighton. Unlike Superior Court, there have been no jury trials in district court since March, Creighton said.
Creighton said District Court planned to restart jury trials in mid-November but ultimately held off due to a recommendation from county health officer Dr. Dimyana Abdelmalek. She added 29 cases set for trials settled around the time period they thought they would be holding trials.
As of this week, the court is not planning to restart jury trials until at least late March but that could easily change again based on the health officer's recommendations, Creighton said.
Though the backlog remains high, Creighton said she thinks more people are starting to resolve cases.
"You know we are seeing a lot more case resolutions than normal," Creighton said. "I think it's just the fact that everybody is adjusting to the way things are now."
During a Jan. 7 meeting with the county board of commissioners, Judge Erik Price said the court had set 30 to 40 in-custody cases for the week of Jan. 25. Under normal conditions, he said the number of cases set per week was about 10.
"Before the new site was up and running, we could only do one (in-custody case) because of social distancing," Price said at the meeting. "Prior to COVID-19 we could do up to four. So, our capacity has reduced, but the volume has gotten bigger."
At the time of Price's comments, the court was still planning to restart trails on Jan. 19. However, recent transmission trends have led health officer Abdelmalek to recommend jury trials remain suspended.
The Thurston County jail had its second COVID-19 outbreak the week of Jan. 11 and the facility was placed under quarantine on Jan. 13, according to the latest emergency administrative order from the court.
Eight out of 203 inmates tested positive for the virus on Jan. 11 and three employees tested positive earlier on Jan. 7, according to a Jan. 15 statement from Thurston Public Health and Social Services.
Due to this outbreak, no inmates at the facility could be transported for court hearings, the order read. At the time of the Jan. 14 order, Thurston County also had a reported transmission rate of 235.1 cases per 100,000 people over two weeks.
On Thursday, the state reported the county had a rate of 304.4 during Dec. 29 through Jan. 11 — a likely product of a post-holiday surge in cases.
The impact of delayed justice
The delay in the administration of justice means cases where the defendant is being held in jail are being prioritized over out-of-custody cases, Price said. He added the delays can even have an impact on those involved in out-of-custody cases.
"Just because something's out of custody, doesn't mean it doesn't have a whole lot of hurt to continue it," Price said. "You're not having someone sit in custody, but you do have dozens and dozens of victims and witnesses and family members; all of those people are affected by delay from out-of-custody cases."
Patrick O'Connor, director of Thurston County Public Defense, said he supports the jury trial suspensions in the interest of public health, but acknowledged that the policy is fraught with challenges.
For one, many attorneys are concerned that the delays are convincing more clients to accept a plea offer, O'Connor said.
"The earliest under the current emergency order they could see a jury trial is in March — however they don't know where they would fall (in terms of priority)," O'Connor said. "Given the priority for trials, it may be even more months than that before they will be able to exercise that constitutional right."
Still, O'Connor said public defense attorneys are not advising clients to accept plea bargains they would not usually accept. He said doing so would be unethical.
There are also logistical challenges brought on by the pandemic that are causing day-to-day delays for attorneys, and by extension, their clients.
"Communication is more challenging," O'Connor said. "Access to clients is more challenging in the pandemic. So, it's placed an additional burden on the defenders."
He added the public defense office has had to limit how many people come to their office, which could impact clients who lack the resources to communicate over the phone.
Caseloads per attorney have not necessarily gotten larger, O'Connor said, but each attorney is certainly spending more time on each case.
Additionally, many attorneys are concerned for the health and safety of in-custody clients, especially considering the recent outbreaks at the county jail.
"We do have a lot of clients that call, concerned, that are incarcerated, but I know the jail is doing everything they can do," O'Connor said. "It's just that at the end of the day, it's still a jail."
When jury trials do resume, O'Connor said, he hopes citizens will not be deterred from participating in jury duty, which will be essential for clearing the backlog.
"I'm confident that when jury trials resume that it will be a safe environment for jurors to serve," O'Connor said.
The new office space
The new office space on the 2400 block of Chandler Court Southwest was meant to help chip away at the backlog of cases but it has not seen a jury trial since it opened in mid-December. The space has only been used for civil motions, their small claims calendar and internal work, Creighton said.
The Superior Court has not gotten to use the new space for jury trials either, said Commissioner Tye Menser, but it has gotten to use the space for a single bench trial.
However, the extra space will help the courts get through their backlogs once they are able to resume them safely. In the meantime, the extra space can still serve other uses, Menser said.
"We're excited about the opportunity that that new space provides us," Menser said. "Not just with respect to jury trials, but just in general to provide a little more elbow space for us."
Funding for the initial costs of the space came from federal Coronavirus Relief Fund money, but ongoing costs, about $1 million a year, will come out of the county's general fund, the Olympian previously reported.
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