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Houston County State Court judge pushes back jury trials until end of year due to pandemic

Judge Jason Ashford says it's due to the Delta variant and cases in the county.

HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — Houston County's State Court Judge Jason Ashford recently decided to push back all jury trials for both civil and criminal cases. They alternate the type of case every month, but he says now those are all on hold until he thinks it's safe.

Ashford says bench trials, arraignments and hearings are still on -- masks are required in the court rooms and some business is handled via Zoom.

After more than a year off, he says jury trials resumed in May 2021. However, he says with the rise of the Delta variant, he decided to stop again in September.

“It was the right thing to do. My view to shift those a little bit later to give our hospitals a little more to recover and hopefully get these numbers down to more manageable level, so we're not putting our jurors and court personnel at risk of infection,” said Ashford.

He says he had an important two-week civil trial set for this month, but he didn’t feel comfortable proceeding.

“The attorneys for both sides let the court know they were having great difficulty getting witnesses in because of COVID and their own personal safety as well," said Ashford.

He says the criminal calendar starts with 300 cases that gets narrowed down to about 12 going to trial. Civil cases starts at 40 cases but gets narrowed down to about three going to trial.

“Ultimately, what's left is those cases that can't be worked out via pleas or through dismissals,” he said.

For civil trials, they seat 12 jurors and six jurors for criminal trials. He says right now they just don't have the space or facilities to keep everyone socially distant.

“We definitely wanted to get some of those cases done, but it is my goal and intention to have no backlog by the end of next year,” said Ashford.

Ashford says he plans to resume in December but he’ll start sooner if he can to cut down the backlog.

The Sept. 21 data from Houston Healthcare shows 86 people hospitalized with COVID-19 cases --  49 are in ICU and 33 on ventilators.

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