EVANSVILLE (WEHT) – Several changes are coming to the operations of the Vanderburgh Superior Court in response to the recent surge of COVID-19 effective Monday while the building remains open. The changes are as follows:
• Beginning Monday to March 1, the court is suspending the in person 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. cattle calls in family court. the Judges’ staffs will work on contacting, resetting and re-calendaring the cases.
• The Monday 1 p.m. Family Court session for the Public Defender appointed cases will only be for the in-custody cases by WebEx. The non-custody public defender cases will need to be reset to March 1st or later.
• The Judges’ and Magistrate contested hearing books will be located in Tara’s office. The attorneys can then contact her to schedule or re-schedule contested hearings.
• Protective order cases that were set with their companion family case during the 8 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. cattle call are all extended and continued to the same later date as their companion case.
• Already scheduled evidentiary family hearings will be handled by the judge assigned. The judge may choose to have the hearing in person, on WebEx/Zoom, or re-schedule and each judges’ office will handle that.
• Emergency family hearings will be left to each judge’s discretion and whether the hearing is in person or by Zoom/WebEx.
• Summary hearings will continue to be held in-person each Friday. 8. Magistrates will continue hearing evidentiary hearings during the afternoons when in family court.
• Ex parte protective prders and hearings on permanent protective orders that are on a judge’s personal calendar will continue as scheduled and each judge’s staff shall handle the matter.
• There will be no civil jury trials from Monday until March 1.
• There will be no proceeding supplemental cases scheduled from Monday until March 1. Each judge’s staff will reset, and reschedule their proceeding supplemental cases.
• Civil bench trials will be left to each assigned judge on how to proceed.
• There will be no change in the operations to small claims or misdemeanor court
• There will be no criminal jury trials commencing Monday to March 1.
• All other criminal matters with the exception of pleas and sentencing hearings will be handled remotely.
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(This story was originally published on December 4, 2020)
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