By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
There have been many bumps in the road for county attorneys in Kansas over the last three years. COVID-19 and the resulting quarantines shut down jury trials around the state in 2020. In Barton County, the county attorney's office had to move its offices due to the HVAC Renovation Project. County Attorney Levi Morris said there have been no jury trials since the move to a temporary office last year. That's about to change with a full staff now.
"The temporary courthouse isn't really the reason we haven't done any," he said. "It's been our shortage. The biggest impact is we're going to get back to doing them. We have a slate of jury trials scheduled all the way to August."
A jury trial was scheduled at the temporary district court facility on Main Street in Great Bend last month, but it was canceled by an ill defense attorney at the last minute.
"We were going home on a Friday thinking we were going to have a jury trial on a Monday," Morris said, "then we get the email over the weekend that said, 'Nope. Sorry. Can't do it.' You can't argue with a quarantine order, can you?"
Defendants have a constitutional right to a speedy trial. With COVID restrictions, that timeline has been suspended since March 19, 2020, but a recent bill passed by the Kansas legislature reinstated that deadline on March 1.
"There's a date in a case where, after that, you have to bring somebody to trial within 150 days or 180, so you get five or six months," said Morris. "If they request a delay, it stops the clock but the state has an obligation to get them done."
Morris said that timeline seems like a lengthy one but with two courtrooms in Barton County, it can be tricky to get everything scheduled. A full-sized staff, he said, will make managing any issues easier.