Just a few weeks into the pandemic, a group of local defense attorneys began wondering how the Monterey County Superior Court system planned to keep people who had business with the court safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. By people who had business with the court, Iâm referring not only to defendants and victims or litigants, but clerks and bailiffs, attorneys, judges, witnesses and juries. On a busy day, the Salinas courthouse has hundreds and maybe even a thousand people moving in and out.
Jury trials resumed in June after the initial pandemic shutdown, and for any given trial, hundreds of jurors are often called so attorneys have a sufficient number of potentials from which to choose. On one day, about six weeks ago, the line of jurors waiting to be called into the Salinas courthouse extended from the doors down the government plaza walkway to the County Administration Building, and they were out there for hours.