Zooming In: Courtrooms and Defendants’ Rights during the COVID-19 Pandemic
| Author | Esther Nir,Jennifer Musial |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221076099 |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Zooming In: Courtrooms
and Defendants’Rights
during the COVID-19
Pandemic
Esther Nir and Jennifer Musial
New Jersey City University, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
Abstract
COVID-19 placed unprecedented strains on criminal court systems, necessitating moves
to digital platforms with little preparation. To study the influence of virtual courtrooms
on defendant rights (e.g. effective assistance of counsel, speedy and public trials, among
others), we qualitatively analyzed the journals of 44 student court watchers, document-
ing their observations of online court proceedings in a single state in the Nor theastern
United States. We find that virtual courtrooms are highly disorganized and fraught with
technical malfunctions, compromising defendants’appearances online, and impeding
their ability to confer with counsel and address the court. Defendants with less access
to digital platforms and incarcerated individuals are disproportionately impacted.
Further, court actors tend to treat virtual court in a casual manner and are often unpre-
pared to litigate cases, resulting in undue delays, and extended periods of pre-trial deten-
tion. Policy recommendations to improve technologies and administrative procedures
are discussed.
Keywords
COVID-19, defendant’s rights, grounded theory, technology, virtual courtrooms
Corresponding author:
Esther Nir, Department of Criminal Justice, New Jersey City University, 2039 John F. Kennedy Boulevard,
Professional Studies Building, Room 226, Jersey City, NJ 07305, USA.
Email: enir@njcu.edu
Article
Social & Legal Studies
2022, Vol. 31(5) 725–745
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/09646639221076099
journals.sagepub.com/home/sls
“Can you hear me, judge? …I’m prepared to go forward with it. I’m here live.
I’m not a cat.”
—Rod Ponton (2021)
Introduction
A Zoom exchange between lawyer Rod Ponton and Judge Roy Ferguson made headlines
in February 2021 when Ponton appeared on-screen as a cat during a hearing in the 394th
District Court of Texas. Ponton was using his assistant’s computer whose daughter
changed the filter settings prior to this call. The public learned about the mishap when
it was posted to the court’s YouTube page (Victor, 2021). After nearly a year of Zoom
connectivity during COVID-19, the public appreciated the levity. Judge Ferguson
tweeted about the situation for educational purposes: “These fun moments are a
by-product of the legal profession’s dedication to ensuring that the justice system con-
tinues to function in these tough times. Everyone involved handled it with dignity, and
the filtered lawyer showed incredible grace. True professionalism all around!”
(Ferguson, 2021). Other court participants have experienced similar blunders from not
realizing their camera or microphone was on, to funny screen names, to unusual
virtual backgrounds (Morris, 2021). In this case, “Lawyer Cat”was comic relief but
how many people knew that the hearing was about “a man who attempted to leave the
U.S. with contraband cash”(West-Knights, 2021)? The purpose for the hearing—even
the defendant himself—was missing from news coverage. While the mishap was cer-
tainly funny, the stakes of appearing in virtual court are high for defendants whose
lives are on the line.
Pre-COVID 19, U.S. court systems often failed to protect defendant rights and court
remedies/relief for procedural transgressions by police and prosecutors were frequently
elusive. For example, cases were rarely dismissed for speedy trial violations
(Shestokas, 2014) and motions to suppress evidence based on unreasonable searches
or seizures typically resolved in favor of the prosecution (Jacobi, 2011; Uchida and
Bynum, 1991). Further, scholarly studies have demonstrated profound inequities in crim-
inal case processing in the courts, disadvantaging minorities and poor defendants; among
other areas, disparities have been documented in sentencing (Albonetti, 1997; Doerner
and Demuth, 2010; Everett and Wojtkiewicz, 2002; Feldmeyer and Ulmer, 2011;
Steffensmeier and Demuth, 2000), plea bargaining (Berdejó, 2018; Metcalfe and
Chiricos, 2018), and pre-trial detention (Donnelly and MacDonald, 2018). While these
problems pervaded the criminal justice system before the pandemic, the challenges of
working in virtual courtrooms placed added weight on already-shaky court foundations.
Like Judge Ferguson, we applaud the dedication of many actors (i.e. judges, prosecu-
tors, defense attorneys) who kept courts functioning during extraordinarily difficult times.
Over eighteen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, now is the time to ask: How are we
doing? How has the move to virtual courtrooms impacted defendant rights and the court’s
ability to ensure that criminal cases are processed efficiently and fairly (e.g. speedy trials,
effective assistance of counsel)? Have virtual settings negatively affected certain defen-
dants (i.e. based on race or socioeconomic status) more than others? In what ways? Do
726 Social & Legal Studies 31(5)
To continue reading
Request your trial