Courtroom testimony in the Time of COVID.
This was not your father's Perry Mason.

A thread.
1/11

In the last two months I testified for about 3 hours over a 3-day period. This as the first criminal trial I've had to testify at in over a year, and the first done under COVID rules.
2/11

The courtroom had been rearraigned. The jury and alternates were spread out from the jury box, taking over twice the usual area, extending out to where the prosecution and defense tables were usually located.
3/11

The defense and prosecution tables were on the far side wall across from the jury. The people who normally sit in that area, law clerks, deputy marshals, paralegals, etc., where scattered in the gallery.
4/11

The witness box was cleaned between witnesses. Witnesses wore a face mask up to the podium, and were sworn in behind a plexiglass shield. After being sworn in, the face mask was exchanged for a face shield, so that the jury could see the witness' face while testifying.
5/11

Exam gloves were required for handling the evidence and exhibits binders. The witness box was a bit crowded, between the exhibit 3" ring binders, bagged evidence, and a large plexiglass shield which was across the front.
6/11

When I was testifying, I found there was a sweet spot of less than an inch from the mic where my voice was being adequately picked up and not fading out. Facing the jury, the attorneys, the exhibits monitor, or the judge, and the face shield tended to hit the microphone. 7/11

I was recalled for rebuttal while court recessed for the weekend, and then everything just... stopped. One of the marshals was diagnosed with COVID, potentially exposing the defendant, attorneys, and jury.

https://www.vtd.uscourts.gov/news/announcement-potential-covid-exposure-updated-112020
8/11

Just under a month later, trial resumed. I testified in a rebuttal against the defendant's testimony. The same conditions and precautions listed above still applied.
9/11

Testifying is usually stressful, and dealing with the COVID precautions added to it, but it was something of a compromise to get through it, so that the accused could have a fair trial.
10/11

Thinking of the British courts with their horsehair wigs, I have to wonder if, 300 years post-COVID, will witnesses have to don the traditional face shield and exam gloves, while lawyers will only address the court if they have a hard plexi shield in front of them.
-Fin
11/11