Jury trials canceled through March

There will be no jury trials at Jay County Courthouse until at least March.

Indiana Supreme Court announced Monday that it is suspending jury trials statewide until March 1 because of the potential spread of COVID-19.

“Since March, we have been balancing the requirement to keep courts open with the need for public health,” Chief Justice Loretta Rush said in a press release Monday. “The worsening pandemic creates urgency for us to halt jury trials as we maintain all other court operations …”

The order does not prevent bench trials, which are commonly used to decide misdemeanor cases, or other general operations at the courthouse.

A long list of cases has been backlogged already after the coronavirus pandemic forced the courthouse to pause all scheduled jury trials in the spring.

“When we reschedule these trials, we’ll have to push everything around,” Jay Circuit Court Judge Brian Hutchison said hours after the state Supreme Court announced the order Monday.

He said he found out about the order in an email from the Supreme Court on Monday afternoon and immediately tasked his bailiff with preliminarily planning a new schedule.

Hutchison, who was set to hear high profile murder and neglect cases in January and February, said trials will have to be heard in an order relatively close to when the defendants were preliminarily charged, meaning the whole schedule will have to be changed.

He estimated there were about 15 jury trials scheduled in his court for January and February. A jury trial was last carried out at the beginning of last week in Jay Circuit Court.

Jay Superior Court Judge Max Ludy, whose court generally only hears jury trials for Level 6 felonies, said he had already pushed scheduled jury trials to next year with the understanding that the state Supreme Court advised against jury trials unless it was “absolutely necessary.”

Judge-elect Gail Dues is set to take over Jay Superior Court in January after she defeated Ludy in the Republican primary in June and ran unopposed in the general election.

Jay Circuit Court jury trials scheduled in the coming months include those for Esther J. Stephen and Hannah Knapke, both who were charged with the Jan. 12 murder of Shea Briar, and another for Ryan Markle, who was charged with neglect of a dependent resulting in death, a Level 1 felony, after his 3-month-old son Hayden Markle died from methamphetamine intoxication March 6.

Various high level drug-related and battery cases were also scheduled to go to trial in the coming months. Jury trials are only guaranteed for those charged with felonies.

The courthouse remains open by appointment only following a November order by Jay County Commissioners.