GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Brown County Courthouse is making the adjustments to get back on track. The County hasn’t had a jury trial since the COVID-19 pandemic started in March.
“We ultimately decided that the space in Brown County in the jury trial courtrooms is not big enough to socially distance everybody,” said Brown County Presiding Judge Tammy Jo Hock.
The courtroom will look a lot different. One change that sticks out right away is the jury box which has been spaced out and surrounded each seat with plexiglass.
Brown County District Attorney David Lasee tells FOX 11 public seating has been limited to about half of its normal capacity.
“We’re all trying to do stuff that’s a little creative or out of the box right now, using the resources that we have available to us to try to get things moving.”
Hock tells FOX 11 jury selection will happen off site. For the first few trials, in one of the KI Convention Center’s ballrooms.
“I think when we have a case where there might be some media attention, or there might be some other concerns we tend to summons in more people for the jury panel just to make sure there’s enough that we can properly seat the jury. We also then have the ability then to let the public come, because these are public hearings where public access is proper and appropriate and we’ll have the space to allow them to be at the KI center too if they choose.”
“I think what would make people uncomfortable about jury duty is putting twelve or fifteen or fifty people in a very small, confined space all breathing the same air and being on top of each other,” said Lasee. “By utilizing a larger space like the KI center, we can bring fifty or a hundred people together and do so safely.”
Once the jury is selected and the trial starts, Hock says the hope is to have all the attention on the matter at hand.
“The big issue we have is can the jurors focus on what’s happening in the courtroom instead of focusing on COVID-19. That’s why we’ve instituted all of these safety measures. We’ve gone to extreme measures to make this the most safe environment possible.”
The most important thing is for the juror to hear and see the witness on the stand clearly. Testing the audio, Hock says the sound is coming through very well. In addition to the plexiglass walls around each juror, the witness will be wearing a clear facemask. The court says they’ll be running a couple of test trials in the coming weeks.
“It’s a real jury trial, but we picked a case that we felt was appropriate to just make sure that had maybe a little lower stake in mind and that we could learn from it,” said Hock.
The first jury trial in Brown County is on Tuesday.
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