“Court Can Happen Anywhere”: Courtroom Workgroup Members’ Perceptions of the Challenges and Opportunities of a Transformed Workplace

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has initiated lasting changes in a traditionally staid and inert court system. This study employs a courtroom communities perspective to examine how courtroom workgroup members perceived COVID-19’s impact on their work, their workgroup relationships, and the future of criminal court procedures. It analyzes data from semi-structured interviews with 22 prosecutors, 17 defense attorneys, and 10 judges in Milwaukee, WI, and St. Louis, MO. We find that moving to virtual proceedings limited opportunities for informal interaction. The immediate impact was to upend the courtroom communities’ familiarity, proximity, and stability with implications for plea negotiations and case resolution. Nevertheless, most participants supported using virtual proceedings for certain types of court hearings. Public defenders were more likely than prosecutors, judges, or private defense attorneys to express concerns about technological difficulties for defendants. We conclude by discussing policy and practice implications and identifying areas for future research.

Right to counsel? A mixed‐methods evaluation of the St. Louis County initial appearance program

“…Therefore, the higher mean length of stay appears to be, in part, an artifact of the success of the program, as those who remain in jail are there for more serious offenses, but further research is needed. At the same time, even though care was taken to control for any COVID-19 effects on the statistical outcomes, the long delays in court processing during this period may have influenced outcomes, given how different court processing was during this time (Webster et al, 2023).…”

“…First, the intervention was in part implemented and evaluated during COVID-19. Although we have taken care to separate some potential statistical artifacts (see Appendix A), the COVID-19 pandemic will likely influence court processing for years to come and in ways that we cannot anticipate (Webster et al, 2023). At the same time, the model was continued during a time of significant change in the courts, and the ability to adapt to adversity shows its potential.…”

“…This multi-method analysis allows us to consider whether the program works and how the presence of first-appearance attorneys at arraignment influences the courtroom workgroup. (Stemen et al, 2022), and the office was particularly challenged as a result of COVID-19-related backlogs (Webster et al, 2023). Second, there was evidence that the lack of counsel disproportionally affected people of color, primarily Black males, and was tied, in part, to high bond amounts.…”