Pandemic puts strain on court system

WALLACE — At this point, nearly every aspect of society has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and our legal system certainly has been no exception.

Shoshone County Prosecuting Attorney Keisha Oxendine recently spoke to the News-Press about the state of things at the courthouse and it appears that one thing is for sure — events and businesses may have been canceled or closed by COVID, but crime certainly hasn't.

"COVID has definitely presented us with some new challenges that we're having to navigate through," she said.

A perfect example of this is the recent rise in frequency of Law Days held at the courthouse in Wallace. Under normal circumstances, Shoshone County holds 1-2 Law Days a month where multiple cases can be addressed by District Judge Scott Wayman one after another. In the last 30 days though, there've been four held and another two are scheduled for Nov. 30 and Dec. 4.

"We've been having so many cases lately that in order for Zoom to be effective and manageable, they're having to schedule additional times to get in some of the cases," Oxendine explained.

Due to the pandemic, Law Day has been largely held over video calling, forcing multiple key figures — such as Oxendine herself — to communicate with involved parties through a computer. In fact, the only people that have been actually present in the courtroom on Law Day have been Judge Wayman and select members of his support staff.

Prosecutors, defense attorneys, defendants and anyone else who wants to follow Law Day all have been tuning in remotely. Even currently incarcerated defendants at the Shoshone County Jail don't step foot in the courthouse anymore, thanks to video streaming from the smaller courtroom at the Sheriff's Office.

"Having 25 people on the Zoom courtroom platform at once is very difficult because people don't know to mute themselves and of course there's going to be technical issues that no one can control," Oxendine said.

To try to combat these issues, the court has been working to spread the case load out by adding more Law Days. This strategy has helped, but has also put a strain on the court staff, as it makes it hard to keep up with paperwork.

In addition to the technological challenges, the courts also face a new problem following an Idaho Supreme Court decision on Nov. 9 that has suspended jury trials for the reminder of 2020. This essentially means that a defendant requesting a jury trial (whether they're in jail or not) will either have to wait until January 2021 (or longer) or strike a deal with the prosecutor to settle things sooner.

Oxendine explains that jury trials being in limbo has significantly added to an already large number of backlogged cases and forced her office to take a second look at pending work.

"It's definitely causing us to go back and take a really hard look at cases that are set for trial. We need to ensure that our evidence is strong because what the backlog is creating a huge nightmare when things open back up. These cases are all getting rescheduled with no method to determining priority, so we're having to prepare for cases 10-15 deep because we don't know which one will be up first."

Counting the built up cases from the first lockdown earlier this year, Oxendine estimates that the court is facing a backlog of more than 75 cases that are awaiting either a jury trial or sentencing where life in prison is on the table.

"It's not like crime has stopped during COVID," she said. "Just in the last month, the amount of felony cases we have seen come through our office is just massive."

Oxednine estimates that her office's caseload is roughly 20-25% higher now than it was a year ago at this time.

Unfortunately for the courts across the state, there's no clear solution to dealing with this backlog either.

Organizing video jury trials is currently impossible, due largely to a defendant's constitutional right to face a jury in the courtroom and the logistics of such an endeavor being too complex.

The challenges COVID has presented have also been tough on defense attorneys as well. Oxendine states that something as simple as tracking down a client has been a huge issue due to the remote nature of Law Day.

"It was difficult before, but it's really difficult now to get clients the information they need and get them logged into Zoom," she said.

Looking forward, it appears that pending case numbers will only continue to rise until the pandemic clears up.

"We miss being in a courtroom, we miss seeing defense attorneys in a courtroom," Oxendine said. "It's part of the world we're living in and we're trying to do the best we can."