Ill. Federal Court Halts Jury Trials Amid Rising Virus Cases

By Lauraann Wood
Law360 is providing free access to its coronavirus coverage to make sure all members of the legal community have accurate information in this time of uncertainty and change. Use the form below to sign up for any of our weekly newsletters. Signing up for any of our section newsletters will opt you in to the weekly Coronavirus briefing.

Sign up for our Illinois newsletter

You must correct or enter the following before you can sign up:

Select more newsletters to receive for free [+] Show less [-]

Thank You!



Law360 (October 29, 2020, 8:59 PM EDT) -- The Northern District of Illinois' chief judge on Thursday suspended all jury trials through January in an order that comes as Chicago prepares to enter COVID-19 mitigation restrictions after the rates of infections and hospitalizations in the city have increased in the past several weeks.

Criminal jury trials are suspended immediately in the Northern District of Illinois, while civil jury trials will be suspended effective Nov. 9, according to Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer's seventh general coronavirus safety order. But the court remains open and litigants are encouraged to go forward with bench trials, which are allowed to proceed without restriction, Judge Pallmeyer told Law360 on Thursday.

"We will do our best to be your trier of fact just as well as our juries are," she said. "The second it's safe, we will be bringing jurors back into the courthouse."

Judge Pallmeyer said she understands the desire and need for people to get to court, get their cases heard and help make decisions. And nothing is more critical to the court's mission than jury trials "because we very much need the public to participate in the court process with us, and the most direct way they ever do is when they sit on our juries and … see the way our process works," she said.

But conducting jury trials requires large numbers of people to gather in one place, and that doesn't square with Gov. J.B. Pritzker's latest discussions concerning what constitutes safe group sizes in light of increasing COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates in the city and several other parts of the state, Judge Pallmeyer said.

"This is never a decision we make lightly at all, and we have been working very hard to keep the courthouse safe and clean and make sure people are playing by the rules," she said.

Judge Pallmeyer had been ordering that jury trials be rescheduled since she entered the court's first general safety orders in March before targeting an August date for them to return under certain safety protocols. Illinois was reporting an average of about 1,760 new coronavirus infections per day at that time, according to data from the state's department of health.

Thursday's order marks a step back from what had become the status quo since the court allowed them to resume, as officials fight off a resurgence of COVID-19 in Chicago and several other regions of the state.

Illinois is now reporting its highest daily case totals since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic, recording a new daily-high total of 6,363 new cases Thursday. That total tops the state's previous high of 6,116 cases, a record that had been set just the day before, according to state data.

Chicago has reported an increase in its coronavirus positivity and hospitalization rates for at least two weeks, according to state data. The city has seen 19 straight days of increases to its weekly average positivity percentage, and hospital admissions have increased for 17 days, according to state data.

In light of those increases, Pritzker announced earlier this week that Chicago would join a number of other regions in the state that must operate under safety mitigations with hopes to drive infections down. Those mitigations take effect Friday and require bars and restaurants to close at 11 p.m., prohibit indoor service and restrict both indoor and outdoor social gatherings to no more than 25 people.

--Editing by Michael Watanabe.

For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.

Attached Documents

Useful Tools & Links

Related Sections

Government Agencies

Judge Analytics

Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!