With social distancing in place across the country, courtrooms are strangely quiet as the COVID crisis has ground the justice system nearly to a halt. While many hearings are being conducted by telephone or by video conferencing applications like Zoom, trials have been essentially put on pause until the pandemic begins to abate.
A judge in Houston, however, has decided to get the wheels of justice turning again by authorizing a civil trial in Harris County to begin Wednesday, April 22 via Zoom.
Attorneys Richard Daly and John Scott Black represent the plaintiff in the trial. “Our client has been waiting for their day in court for a while, and when the judge offered the option of conducting the trial via Zoom, we embraced the opportunity,” said Daly.
The trial will be a bench trial, meaning the attorneys argue their case to a judge rather than a jury, which makes the endeavor a little easier; however the complexities of managing testimony from multiple witnesses, entering evidence, and presenting demonstrative aids via Zoom still makes Wednesday’s trial an ambitious undertaking.
“It’s definitely going to require a new set of skills,” says Black. “We’re used to handing documents to the clerk, we’re used to looking the witness in the eye. It’s tough to get a sense of the room in a video conference. Having a trial on Zoom will offer new challenges, but it is necessary, because we don’t know when it’s going to be safe to go back to court again, and the justice system needs to keep moving forward.”
No matter how the trial turns out, it’s sure to serve as an example for court systems across the country. “The technology is there,” Black says, “we just need to figure out how to make it work in a courtroom setting. The lessons we learn from this trial will help pave the way for others, and I anticipate the courts will find a way to start conducting jury trials with video conferencing in the near future.”
When asked if he was concerned about security on Zoom, Daly says, “As long as someone can’t hijack the presentation, we’ll be just fine. Courtrooms are supposed to be open to the public, so if strangers are able to see the feed and watch the trial, then I think that serves the interests of justice.”
The case is Adil Ahmed v. Texas Fair Plan Association filed in the District Court of Harris County, Texas 190th Judicial District.