Stanislaus County court among 42 statewide to get order to limit operations
In response to the growing coronavirus pandemic, California’s Chief Justice on Wednesday granted Stanislaus Superior Court an emergency order that will drastically limit court operations, including continuing all jury trials for at least 30 days and holding sessions outside of the courthouse, like inside detention facilities.
Stanislaus, along with neighboring San Joaquin and Calaveras counties, was among 14 courts to be granted emergency orders Wednesday. Forty-two of California’s 58 counties have received orders since Friday.
People who receive a jury summons during the dates of the order, from March 18 to April 16, are not required to appear.
During that time period, the order also allows the following:
The court can extend expiring emergency protective orders for 30 days without a hearing.
Preliminary hearings can be held within 15 court days of an arraignment, instead of 10 if the defendant does not waive time.
The court can wait seven court days instead of two to arraign an in-custody defendant charged with a felony.
Extends to seven days the time period for which a detained juvenile offender must have a detention hearing.
Extends the time for detained juveniles to go to trial on.
Extends the time a child removed from a home by Child Protective Services must be given a dependency proceeding.
Most matters will be continued during this time and the affected parties will be notified of their rescheduled court dates, according to the court. For more information visit the court’s website.
In its request for the order, Presiding Judge Dawna Fenchie Reeves wrote that six, or a quarter of Stanislaus Court’s judges, are over 65. On Monday, five of them began self-isolating at the direction of Governor Gavin Newsom and the sixth will do so at the conclusion of a murder trial that began this week.
One of the judges is the only judge who handles juvenile dependency hearings when children are removed from a home for safety reasons; another is the court’s only child support commissioner; and two others are assigned to criminal departments.
“Their inventories of assigned cases includes homicides, sex crimes and gang crimes,” Reeves wrote. “It will be difficult to reassign their cases to other judges given the number and complexities of those cases.”
She went on to say that about 70 of the court’s employees are parents of school-aged children who were impacted by school closures this week.
The courtrooms, assembly rooms and jury deliberation rooms are not big enough to meet social distancing standards set forth by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Reeves wrote.
“The court is urgently concerned that continued normal operations in the face of this pandemic would compromise not only the public’s health and safety, but that of the court’s judges and employees, as well as potentially their families,” she wrote.
In addition to the measures granted in the order, traffic court was closed Wednesday through April 17 and the court intends to continue most civil, probate and family law cases for six to eight weeks, as well as most pretrial matters for criminal and juvenile cases.
“It remains to be seen whether the court, in conjunction its justice partners, will have sufficient staff to maintain even the reduced service levels …. Therefore, it may soon be necessary; to further reduce calendars and court services,” Reeves wrote.
The court asks that you check the status of your case online at https://www.stanct.org/case-index-lookup before going to court. You are also advised to visit the court’s homepage daily for updates.
This story was originally published March 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
