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Dark Winter for Trial Lawyers

Today there is a wave of news. Delaware froze jury trials, although only through December 4. New York state courts have suspended jury trials indefinitely. New Jersey has continued all jury trials, except one that is in progress. Tennessee suspended jury trials through January 31. Vermont, one of the states least impacted by the pandemic, never resumed holding jury trials, and it has canceled its plans to do so in December. Alaska has shut down jury trials through at least January 4. Pennsylvania has suspended most courthouse operations, including jury trials, statewide—just days after leaving it up to individual jurisdictions. And the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana has suspended all jury trials through January 25.

Meanwhile, in the suspended US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas breach of contract trial in Judge Amos Mazzant’s courtroom, which we’ve covered previously, now 13 participants—including two jurors, two people on the plaintiff’s team and three people on the defense—have tested positive for COVID-19. The trial had been set to resume November 30, but one juror didn’t feel comfortable returning to trial at any point, another said they wouldn’t feel comfortable unless the trial was postponed for a month and a third wouldn’t be able to return until December because of scheduling issues, Law360 reports. The result is a mistrial. Judge Mazzant is pushing all his scheduled December trials into 2021.




What Reopening? Dockets on Hold in Multiple US Jurisdictions

The US District Court for the District of Massachusetts has sent out notices seeking information to reschedule federal civil jury trials for 2021. The rest of 2020 is off the table. Meanwhile, many courts that did restart their jury trial dockets are being forced to rethink that. In Tennessee, Memphis courts have put reopening plans on hold—including canceling the scheduled trial for the accused killer of NBA star Lorenzen Wright, which was scheduled to begin yesterday. Cincinnati courts canceled their jury trials, effective yesterday. In Idaho, only one county is open for jury trials. In Michigan, Livingston County postponed jury trials until further notice, as did all neighboring counties.

On the other side of the coin, however, a jury trial is underway in a homicide case in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania (Allentown and Easton). And rural counties in North Carolina are launching their first trials this week.




 McDermott’s litigation team monitors US courts as they reopen amid the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis.

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