Dickinson Municipal Court employs social distancing Friday, May 8, 2020
On May 5, Dickinson’s Municipal Court had its first public court day since the city commission closed city hall in late March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Alternate Municipal Judge Gary Ramsey presided over arraignments on May 5. On May 7, Municipal Judge Robert Keogh presided over another open court session.
“We share the commission meeting room with the commission and city staff,” said Judge Keogh. “The city hall remains closed to the public, but we were allowed to hold court.”
Judge Keogh said the court took a variety of steps to ensure social distancing and the safety of court staff and participants
“We had chairs spaced and scheduled a small number of appearances,” he said. “We used disposable pencils. We did not allow extra visitors. We had a staff person in the building foyer who controlled access and gave the defendant their paperwork including the notification of rights form.”
Chief Justice Jon J. Jensen said municipal courts statewide typically hold large group court sessions which presents a challenge in light of the recommendations for social distancing.
“The picture from Dickinson visually demonstrates how that particular court is meeting the challenge,” he said.
Judge Ramsey said that the municipal court clerks did a really good job in setting up the court room, explaining the procedure to the defendants and directing traffic into the room.
“All of the defendants were respectful of the procedure and perhaps even grateful that their well-being was being taken into consideration,” he said.
“No one attempted to be closer to anyone else than our spacing allowed” said Judge Keogh. “No one seemed to be uncomfortable but they were cautious.”
Chief Justice Jensen said municipal courts play an important role because they are often the first and only contact North Dakota citizens have with the North Dakota judicial system. North Dakota has 92 municipal courts and 64 municipal court judges.
Judge Keogh said procedure in court was modified for safety: defendants approached the bench twice, when the judge gave them a clean notification of rights form to sign and when they handed the signed form back.
He said staff wore gloves and masks and that a plastic sheet was installed at the front of the bench and at the clerk’s window. Defendants had access only to the clerk’s office, the court room, and the rest rooms adjacent to the clerk’s office.
Judge Keogh said he expected pandemic safety measures to continue for a while.
“We are holding court twice a week now to catch up with the backlog,” he said. “We think we can safely schedule a few more defendants for each time slot, but we don’t plan to return to ‘normal’ for some time.”