The COVID pandemic has made a mess of a lot of things. Throw the Court System. Anderson County Commissioners have approved a plan that will allow Anderson County District Court Officials to use the Anderson County Fairgrounds Community Building in order to ensure Social Distancing measures, should the County have need for a jury trial before COVID 19 protocols are lifted. The move was part of a process underway by the State Court System to resume jury trials in a safe manner in each of the County District Courts after they were cancelled at the beginning of COVID 19. John Steelman, District Court Administrator for the Fourth Judicial District, says the Health and Safety of Jurors and participants is the number one priority. Each District was tasked with submitting a plan that would allow the resumption of Jury Trials while maintaining social distancing requirements for everyone involved. Those plans must be approved by the Kansas Supreme Court and that approval could come as early as this week.
Courts in the Fourth District reopened May 26th requiring masks, screening questions, hand sanitizer and social distancing requirements; but jury trials, which involve larger numbers of people, were not rescheduled prior to the new location plan. Jury trials are rare in the Fourth District’s more rural courts, but are more common in Franklin County, due to a larger population. Steelman says the Court was working on a deal with the City of Ottawa to use Ottawa Municipal Auditorium as its temporary jury trial location.
