By Frank G. Runyeon

Law360, New York (March 20, 2020, 9:22 PM EDT ) The courtrooms were dark this past week in the New York state courthouse at 60 Centre St. in Manhattan, where the echo of officers walking the halls was often the only sound. Just a few judges remain on-site amid skyrocketing COVID-19 diagnoses in the state.

The last week in New York state courts illustrates how the coronavirus outbreak has upended business as usual for judges, with the suspension of all new jury trials and the discouragement of in-person appearances. Cases are delayed and the action has moved into a virtual space, with arraignments and other hearings occurring via video feed.


The importance of quarantining the courts became apparent as two state court judges — one in Queens and another in Brooklyn — both tested positive for the coronavirus in a week that also saw cases increase from 154 to 4,408 in New York City alone as of Friday afternoon.

As those numbers came in, Gov. Andrew Cuomo mandated that all workers stay home except essential employees in the courts and other sectors.

"It's a challenging time here, just like everywhere else," Justice Joel Cohen told Law360 in a sitdown interview on Wednesday.

Justice Cohen typically fields arguments from attorneys sparring over lawsuits with over $500,000 at stake in Manhattan's Commercial Division, where companies bring their grievances from all over the world to be heard by one of the eight judges.

This last week, just five judges were open to handle emergencies, and Justice Cohen happened to be the only Commercial Division judge left in the courthouse, fielding a very different sort of caseload as the ex parte judge.

On Wednesday morning, five officers surrounded a man in handcuffs before Justice Cohen as his lawyer explained the hearing was over and he was being committed to Bellevue Hospital for examination under the mental hygiene laws. The man sat quietly for a while before leaping to his feet and hollering.

"The calmer you are, the more likely they are to let you go," the attorney told his client before the man was taken away. "Don't yell or curse at the doctors."

An ex parte judge may have encountered such a case between a larger volume of high-dollar lawsuits in the courthouse before, but the solitary presence of such a starkly different case served to highlight the dramatic reshuffling of judicial priorities amid the pandemic. The big bank attorneys were gone, and there's no telling when they — or so many others — are coming back.

Ninety percent of the court system staff is either working remotely or not working at all, said Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the state courts. Outside New York City, many local courthouses are closed and any emergency proceedings are being consolidated in one regional courthouse. Courthouses in New York City remain open but are limited to a bare-bones crew of "essential" staff.

Save for emergency applications, hardly any evidence of the bustle of civil litigation in the Commercial Division remains. The slowdown began nearly two weeks ago when a long-simmering Lehman Brothers trial was delayed after an attorney who works in Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP's New York office tested positive for COVID-19.

But Justice Cohen noted that his civil cases were proceeding, with delays, with the help of some new technology.

"We've done a couple of things by Skype and others by telephone," Justice Cohen said, seated 10 feet away behind a desk. "Of course, we're trying to do our part with social distancing."

The judge's Skype hearing with attorneys from Quinn Emanuel was his first ever, and it worked out with a little help from Justice Andrew Borrok's tech-heavy courtroom, which features videoconferencing capability and a massive flat screen roughly nine feet across.

"In this kind of situation, it's extremely helpful," Justice Cohen said.

Up the street in Manhattan criminal court, officials touted the first-ever video arraignment on Tuesday evening where Judge Kevin McGrath faced a large video screen and an assemblage of nearly two dozen onlookers, including several police officers, court officers, prosecutors, defense attorney and others. The defendant, who was elsewhere in the building, was the only party not physically in the room.

"This proceeding is being done over video. Do you consent to that happening?" Judge McGrath asked the video-linked defendant.

"Yes, sir," said a man's voice over the speakers.

Standing near the entrance to the well, the clerk in charge appeared bemused at the history unfolding.

"This is the first one ever," said clerk Pete Tyrrell, looking on. "They're just working out the kinks now."


"Mr. Coleman, can you hear me?" Judge McGrath said, adding that on the charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance, his attorney had entered a plea of guilty on his behalf. "Is that what you want to do?"

"Yes, sir," the voice replied, emanating from the video screen facing the bench.

Judge McGrath sentenced the man to time served — two days in jail — and adjourned the proceeding, cutting the video feed.

The judge then turned to a half-dozen court staff off to his left and began clapping, kicking off a smattering of applause for the seven-minute technological coup.

"They've been working to do this for 10 years," a uniformed police officer mused to another bystander. "It'll never go back to the way it was."

By early Friday evening, the Manhattan criminal court clerk's office said it had completed nearly 90 video arraignments.

In a video address posted online Friday, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore confirmed that all New York City criminal arraignments and all detained youth in family court will appear by video link.

"Our courts are critical to the functioning of our society and even more so during a public health crisis like this one,"  Judge DiFiore said. "For this reason, our courts remain open to handle all essential and emergency matters."

Just because many courthouse halls are quiet and proceedings are often delayed, that doesn't mean the dockets have frozen over.

"As far as I know, everyone is still cranking away," Justice Cohen said, explaining that many judges were handling motions in written submissions instead of oral arguments and learning how to conduct court business from a distance.

When asked how he saw this new regime playing out over the coming weeks, the judge demurred.

"I try to take it a day at a time," Justice Cohen said, politely excusing himself and wrapping up the interview.

"I'd shake your hand," he added wryly from across the room, "but someone might come in here and arrest us."

--Editing by Philip Shea and Jill Coffey.

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