CHARLOTTE — For more than a year and a half, in-person services in the Mecklenburg County court system have been shuttered by the COVID-19 pandemic, creating headaches for officials and delaying justice for others.
When Louis Dickerson was arrested for assault in May, he thought he’d come to court and quickly resolve the issue. He didn’t count on COVID restrictions keeping courtrooms closed. Five months and two cancelled court dates later, the charges are still hanging over his head.
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“The issue I have is that they do my background check, that pending charge is showing, and that might exclude me from getting any jobs I need,” Dickerson told Channel 9 reporter Mark Becker.
Local attorneys and judges are also hampered by the shutdowns and are raising questions about the delayed return to normal.
“99 out of 100 courthouses in this state are open and operating at their normal capacity. This is the only one. Why is that?” defense attorney Brad Smith asked. “I think it’s time -- and I know that my view is shared by many of my colleagues -- that it is time to go back to work and doing justice.”
The State’s Administrative Office of the Courts couldn’t share how many courtrooms across the state are fully open, but in Mecklenburg County most courts remain closed to in-person trials.
At the same time, many other public settings like restaurants and clubs or venues like the Spectrum Center and Bank of America Stadium are permitting large crowds.
“I think everybody’s scratching their head at this point,” defense attorney Mark Jetton told Channel 9. “We’re all trying to understand why what’s been considered an essential place of business, we haven’t opened it up yet.”
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The decision to open courtrooms -- how many and when -- is up to a group of key court officials that include the chief judges and the clerk of courts who meet each month. Channel 9 requested an interview on the decision-making process and when more courtrooms may re-open, but that was denied.
In an email, the trial court administrator said, “the scope of court operations in Mecklenburg County is predicated upon minimum public health criteria.” When this month’s court schedule was announced, the county had a COVID positivity rate of 8.2%.
The caution is warranted. In August a jury trial was called off and the courthouse was closed after a COVID outbreak in the clerk’s office. Later that month, a clerk died from COVID.
A staffing shortage in the clerk’s office may also be impacting the shutdown.
Clerk Elisa Chinn-Gary wouldn’t tell Channel 9 how many positions the office is down but did say the number of employees that have left in the past four months is equal to the amount that left in all of 2020.
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Issues aside, Mecklenburg County’s District Attorney Spencer Merriweather said it is past time to make justice work again.
“COVID’s not our only emergency,” Merriweather told Channel 9. “It is an emergency to have a criminal justice system that has been contracted for the better part of 19 months.”
Merriweather said the backlog of cases is now several years deep and he worries for the thousands of victims who aren’t getting the justice they deserve.
“That means something not only for the homicide cases you and I have spoken about before, but also for people who’ve had their houses broken into, and people who’ve had people speeding down their neighborhood,” Merriweather told Channel 9.
As the delay continues, disappointment grows.
“I think everyone is frustrated, quite frankly. I think everyone in this community is tired. This pandemic has worn us down … but we are ready,” Merriweather said. “Our community has an expectation that we respond to the crimes that are happening in our community every day, and that has to happen.”
It is difficult to estimate how many cases have been delayed as a result of the closures. Court officials will meet again later this month to decide whether to open more courtrooms in December. Even before COVID, courts typically slow during the holiday season, so it will probably be at least January before the courts are anywhere near full operation.
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