Criminal,
Covid Court Ops
Dec. 10, 2020
Pandemic presents constitutional challenges in criminal cases
"We need the trials to keep happening. But having said that, we want the trials to happen in a more fair and complete way. And we know there's some efforts, but there's more that can be done," said San Francisco Public Defender Manohar Raju.
During the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, a judge in San Francisco devised a creative way to keep criminal trials moving forward.
Because indoor gatherings were discouraged by health officials, trials moved outdoors. A contemporaneous photo from a newspaper clipping shows dozens of unmasked people gathered in Portsmouth Square while a judge appears to preside over a case.
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