RUMPOLE IN COURT

 This morning, we rose, completed our morning ablutions, donned a new suit despite the 90 degree weather, freshly shinned shoes, left our gentleman's bowler that we use for legal matters in London on the shelf, and drove to lot 26 where we parked our semi-luxurious vehicle in a nicely empty lot- the continued payments for a spot in lot 26 being our one non-concession to covid19. We will wear a mask in court, but you can pry our Lot 26  parking card from our hands only when we are retired and living in Sun City Arizona. 

Once in the old gray lady, we made the rounds, being suitably deferential to those who wear black for a living. We scoffed at prosecutors who have "victim wants max" tattooed on their foreheads, and we charmed clients and their families with our legal bravado and quick wit. 

It was, in all aspects, a part of our life that we lived every day since before many of the judges and prosecutors who surreptitiously read this blog, were born. 

Then came covid19, and the world will never be the same. 

And maybe that's how it should be. Covid has moved an aching and creaky and somewhat ancient -in thought if not age- judiciary into the 21st century. 

Long Live Zoom Court. 

BTW in case you're keeping count, on Wednesday at least four people were killed at an Oklahoma hospital mass shooting. 

You know the difference between the USA and Ukraine? The citizens of Ukraine know when they're under attack and can flee the war zone. In the USA every city, every public place, every school is a potential war zone. 

HOW TO REOPEN THE COURTS

The Courts, and by that we mean those who run them, have been quiet on re-opening. Much like a sealed motion filed by the prosecution, we do not know what is going on. 

Here are some problems our intrepid robe wearers will need to address and settle: 
El Chapo Café- Open?  Social distancing? Let's say we get everything else in place, it's a Monday at lunchtime, people are streaming downstairs to eat. How are the hungry masses accommodated? 

Courtrooms. It is not our current judges' fault that our beloved REGJB was built circa 1960. Some courtrooms are downright tiny germ-spreading factories. Think about the ones in the back hallways. In Corona-world we cannot have people standing in those narrow hallways waiting to come in to court. Even the regular sized courtrooms have bench seats that crowd people together. None of this works 2020 Corona-world. 

SOLUTION#1- Close the small courtrooms in the back hallways and use the courtrooms on the first floor now being used for traffic calendars.  It brings less people deeper into the building. Misdemeanor participants can enter, walk right into the courtroom on the first floor,  and leave without using an elevator or escalator. This one is easy and a no-brainer. We expect it to be implemented immediately. 

We need to innovate, which just happens to be our middle name. 

SOLUTION# 2: The C word. CALENDERING.  
Dear Judges Soto and Sayfie. We have had our differences in the past. You did not like the pressure we exerted to close down the courthouses. We in turn, did not fully grasp the pressures you were under and how hard it was to just shut it down. Let's move beyond our differences. Please listen to us. This is important. THE DAYS OF 9 AM CALENDARS ARE OVER. oVER. over. Over. Anyway you spell it. O..V..E..R. 

Judges need to work from 8:30-5:00. Arraignments from 8:45-9:30. Miscellaneous matters from 10:00-11:00. You need a half hour space to empty the building between calendars. 11:30-1 lunch. You need to give people time to eat off-premises. No jurors in building until 1:30. Jury trials from 2 pm on. Change of pleas on Friday afternoons (which gives lawyers in trials Fridays off and avoids the dreaded Friday verdict-syndrome Rumpole abhors). 

No longer will inconveniencing jurors be the guiding principle in pushing jury trials to quick conclusions. Safety. Space. Efficient use of time to schedule and handle hearings will be the new guiding principles.  


Solution#3: Calendar calls Can Be Done By Zoom. Repeat. Lawyers do NOT need to come to the courthouse to announce ready for trial or not. Two weeks before trial date, a Zoom calendar call is scheduled. Hold them during a Thursday evening cocktail hour and you may see more resolutions than normal. 

Solution#4: Saturdays and Sundays are just days in the week. We have all been home for several years now. Or at least it seems that way. There is no rule that says motions to suppress cannot be handled on Saturdays. We will all need to work more to catch up. Judges will need to use the time available to safely space out hearings. 

Here is the guiding principle- we cannot--- cannot---cannot just schedule everything for 9 am, jam people into our courthouse and then work until it is done. To their credit, the Feds have been scheduling their time efficiently for a long time now. State court needs to catch up. 

Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their court system. Judges need the calendaring tools to be able to schedule matters at 2:30 and 4:00 pm. To the court systems' credit, their tech department stepped up and instituted Zoom quicker than you can say it's safe to open tattoo parlors in Georgia.  Lawyers will be inconvenienced. We all need to change the way we do business

Solution#5: Move Traffic Court.  Dade County has lots of office space. Move traffic court off-premises from the courthouse. Commercial real estate is being crushed. You can rent a storefront office on Coral Way for nothing. Marias- a gathering place for REGJB lawyers ever since Janet Reno would stop off for dinner in the 1980's, has sadly closed. That space can be rented. It has street parking. Set up satellite traffic courts all over Dade County, even Hialeah (Motto: "Where the streets have six names"). Add a dollar user fee to each ticket to pay the rent. In Corona-world 2020 and beyond,  it is all about managing the flow of people. Less people in larger spaces=safety.

There will be no WWII to bring this economy back from the coming depression. But maybe there will be a few trillion dollars invested in infrastructure. And that means new public buildings redesigned to eliminate crowds, and the  infections that come with crowds. The new Miami Sy Gaer Criminal Justice Center that can be built in 2025 will be a giant step towards solving these problems. Until then we need to use all the hours in the day, six days a week, to handle the cases in our criminal court system. 

A well intentioned reader may well email us that we did not discuss the civil court system. "How about civil court Rumpole? 

Oh, that's easy  we respond. 
"Jam them all together. The world can use less civil lawyers."

Solution#6:  "I thank you good people. There shall be no money. All shall eat and drink on my score. ...The first thing we do, let's kill all (the civil) lawyers." 
Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, scene 2. 

Drop the mike and walk off the stage. 

Coming next: By Any Other Name.  (hmmmm, what could that be  about?)

THE CAMEL'S NOSE UNDER THE TENT

The following post has NOT been approved for distribution by the Motion Picture Association of America. 

Very slowly... a circumspect email here, a private text there, a hushed phone call with a figure in a black robe huddled in a corner, hand over mouth, eyes darting back and forth, there are discussions about how to reopen the courts. Shhsh...it's a secret, so don't talk about it too loudly. 

When do court calendars get back to normal with State, PDs, RC3s, and private counsel all jockeying for position to call the next case whilst remaining six feet apart? 
Will we have X's on the floor of the courtrooms, six feet apart, for lawyers and litigants to stand like they do in the checkout line at Costco, Winn Dixie and Starbucks (you can sometimes find Rumpole early in the morning at the SB in the Bond At Brickell for an early morning tall Americano, one pump caramel). 
Will a sidebar now require everyone to leave the courtroom while the participants talk about things that cannot be on the record, like "Can you believe her shoes with that purse?" 

What about jurors? How many in the box? How many will show up for service after being out of work for months? 

And then there's this: "You honor may I approach the witness?"
Witness: "Not unless she's wearing a mask!" 

And of course identification cases will be a bit more difficult: 
Prosecutor: Can you identify the mask the defendant was wearing? 
Witness: "Sure, it was a Snoopy mask, the one where he is on his dog house with goggles on fighting the Red Barron."
Prosecutor: "And were the gloves blue or white?" 

Depo rooms, tiny to begin with, are now out of the question. On the other hand, the Marlins and the Dolphins have stadiums that will not be used much for the next year. State v. Sanchez depos on the 20, State v. Gomez on the 30, and going for the TD, the oral argument in Wilson v. State will be at the goal-line. Meanwhile, in  civil court  Seaver v. Rose notice of depos will be for second base, Marlins Stadium, first question after the national anthem at 1:05 pm. "Get your hot dogs, cold beer! Case law on summary judgements here." 

Prediction: As soon as everyone gets familiar with Zoom, courts will reopen. 

Imagine a rolly-polly Brown bear, hibernating for the winter, emerging from his cave, eyes blinking at the unfamiliar bright spring sunshine, a bit confused about where to go and what to do. That could be your favorite judge, sequestered in their lair for six weeks, nose pressed up against the window, no world walking by to watch. But they will yawn, stretch, and get into their car, roll into the courthouse late, ask their bailiff to grab them a coffee while they wander on to the bench, and start denying motions to suppress before reading them. Then all will be right with the world. At least our corner of it.