From justices of the peace to state district court judges, the sentiment was unanimous during a noon Zoom meeting of the Hidalgo County Board of Judges on Thursday: stay the course on current coronavirus protocols.
The board held an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss Gov. Greg Abbott’s opening of Texas and the subsequent amended emergency order from the Texas Supreme Court that allows the return of in-person court proceedings, with conditions.
Last week, Abbott repealed restrictions on operating capacity at businesses and the statewide mask mandate which took effect Wednesday, a week after his announcement.
On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court amended its emergency order that has caused court proceedings involving juries to grind to a halt, creating a massive backlog of trials straining the court system and clogging jails with people who cannot afford bail, which is in part connected to an executive order Abbott issued last year prohibiting anyone charged with a violent crime from receiving a personal recognizance bond.
A personal recognize bond does not require anyone charged with a crime to put up cash to bail out.
That Zoom meeting was far different than the in-person meeting that occurred nearly a year ago to date, when judges, court staff, attorneys and stakeholders crammed into the 370th state District Court on the first floor of the courthouse to discuss what health experts were calling an unprecedented pandemic that was set to unfold and reach the Rio Grande Valley.
The board at that meeting issued its first emergency order calling for remote proceedings that set the stage for what would be a year of evolving court proceedings as the judges worked to keep a community devastated by COVID-19 safe.
Flash forward one year and Hidalgo County has recorded 2,703 deaths and 79,637 positive cases as of Thursday.
But by summer, as the reality of the pandemic became cemented, the courts had hit a stride with court staff, judges, the jail, prosecutors, defense attorneys and the community learning how to appear before court via Zoom, or learning which courts broadcast proceedings on YouTube so the public could watch while deputies at the jail worked with courts to shuffle jail hearings throughout the week where inmates appeared before judges from jail pods.
The latest iteration of this evolution occurred Thursday when 275th state District Judge Marla Cuellar heard jail dockets from the courtroom at the Hidalgo County Detention Center that was broadcast on YouTube with prosecutors, attorneys and court staff appearing via Zoom.
And now, with the Texas Supreme Court’s latest amended state of disaster allowing jury trials, that could all change — if the board agrees to it.
They don’t and as local Administrative Judge Noe Gonzalez, of the 370th state District Court, pointed out, the Texas Supreme Court gave the local judges the flexibility to make the call about in-person proceedings on their own.
“The one thing that the governor did do is that he left a lot up to the local authorities and the Supreme Court did the same,” Gonzalez said.
However, if a justice of the peace, county court judge or state district judge wanted to, they could open their courtrooms back up under certain conditions if Gonzalez creates minimum standard health protocols for in-person proceedings and an in-person proceeding schedule and it’s adopted by the Board of Judges.
Only two courts indicated to Gonzalez that they would be seeking certain in-person court proceedings.
Master Court No. 2 Associate Judge Ismael “Kino” Flores Jr. told Gonzalez that he and Master Court No. 1 Judge Nereida Lopez-Singleterry would be asking for the schedule and minimum standard health protocols so they could hold certain proceedings for people who have not been paying child support.
“We’re at a point now that we’ve got individuals taking advantage of not having in-person so the threat of jail time isn’t hanging over their head,” Flores explained, saying holding these individuals accountable is the only in-person proceedings that Master Courts Nos. 1 and 2 would be seeking.
And when Gonzalez sets the minimum standard health protocols, local judges may increase those precautions but they cannot decrease them.
But as of now, that appears to be the only exception that any judges will seek with multiple state district court judges expressing fear that Abbott’s opening of the economy right before Spring Break and Easter will cause another surge of cases in the COVID-19 ravaged Valley like last year.
In fact, the first cases in the Valley are linked to a Spring Break trip to Spain and to a visitor from up north to South Padre Island, while Easter saw the beginning of what would become a deadly summer surge that claimed the lives of many residents.
“Nothing’s changed, just wait until Spring Break finishes. The numbers are going to go up. The numbers are going to go up in the county. The deaths are going to go up,” said 389th state District Judge Letty Lopez.
The jurist also noticed that fewer than 10% of Hidalgo County residents have yet to receive a vaccine.
“My position is we stay the course of what we’ve been doing,” Lopez said. “I want my staff vaccinated for those that want to before coming back to the courtroom.”
Mario Ramirez Jr., 332nd state district judge, agreed with Lopez.
“I think Judge Lopez put it very, very well. I am afraid of the numbers that are going to happen after Spring Break,” Ramirez said.
He believes that the courts should hold off on in-person proceedings until a majority of residents here receive vaccinations.
“I think we need to wait until a bigger part of the population is vaccinated and we get into the herd mentality. I really don’t see the rush right now and expose everybody to danger,” Ramirez said.
Israel Ramon Jr., the 430th state district judge, echoed Ramirez’s sentiments on vaccines and said he believed things “are going to go south” because of the re-opening.
“I don’t see why we are rushing or risking sending somebody to jury duty and have them dying,” Ramon said.
The judge said he doesn’t want that on his conscience.
“I know what the governor has indicated and all that, but I think we have a responsibility to the public. I don’t think we should be rushing it,” Ramon said.
And opening in-court proceedings at this time because of social distancing measures might even slow dockets down, 92nd state District Judge Luis M. Singleterry pointed out, explaining that his courtroom — the largest of the courts — can only hold 20 with social distancing measures when busy dockets contain dozens and dozens of cases.
“We can do more doing this than at the courthouse,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense to go back at this point.”
There is the potential for what Gonzalez described as “hybrid proceedings” where a docket is held in-person and over video-conferencing, but multiple judges during the hearing spoke of numerous potential problems, including sound issues and attorneys trying to shuffle between hearings in-person and on Zoom.
As of now, the board has postponed any jury panels until Sept. 1 and the Texas Supreme Court’s emergency order remains in effect until June 1, though 206th state District Judge Rose Guerra Reyna said it’s likely the emergency order could remain for years.
“For those who did not have the benefit of watching the (Office of Court Administration) meeting that came down immediately after the new governor order along with the new Supreme Court order … they agreed unanimously that they anticipated that the state of emergency declaration order would be continued for years and they gave an example: Many people don’t know that the declaration of emergency for Hurricane Harvey is still in force,” Reyna said.
That storm occurred in 2017.
