With jury trials suspended until at least July 6 in Florida due to the coronavirus pandemic, Chief Circuit Judge Jack Tuter in Broward County has been spearheading a move to conduct such proceedings remotely.
“It was a mother of necessity,” Tuter told the Florida Record. “We’re not able to really subpoena jurors into the courthouses in Florida.”
Indeed, he expects the state’s courthouses to experience difficulties getting people to physically return for jury duty and other activities even after the health emergency has subsided, since many residents will continue to suffer from financial burdens if they haven’t been working.
17th Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter
“We started as an adventure to see what it would look like to do a virtual-reality-type jury trial,” Tuter said, adding that videos of mock trials that he and associates have been involved with have been posted on the 17th Judicial Circuit’s website.
The chief judge enlisted personnel from the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) in the effort to put together a template that features the Zoom video-conferencing technology, with ABOTA members and attorneys and playing the roles of jurors and others.
“We believe we can do a jury trial based on what we’ve done so far,” Tuter said, adding that the process might be used as soon as this fall in a straightforward, two- or three-day jury trial with a minimum of exhibits.
He will begin to more closely examine how the voir dire process – the preliminary examination of jurors – will work by next month. The process of finding a neutral group of jurors to decide a civil case in a virtual setting while allowing attorneys to see the jurors’ faces and reactions will be challenging, according to Tuter.
“It’s the most critical component of all of this,” he said. In addition, since lower-income residents may not have a computer and wifi, the court would likely have to provide such options for them at a public library or other facility so that jury pools continue to be representative of society, the chief judge said.
The plaintiff’s and defense attorneys would have to consent to such a trial setting since the state Supreme Court likely would not order parties to use such a system, at least not right away, according to Tuter.
“We don’t have legal authority to order people into this format … so the key would be convincing attorneys and clients to agree to participate in it,” he said.
Tuter expects that courthouses will retain such remote jury trial procedures even after the Covid-19 threat has passed.
“I’m convinced it’s going to stay, simply because it’s a convenience to the lawyers and such a cost savings to their clients,” he said.