Heavican Praises Courts for Quick Adaptations to Pandemic
Nebraska Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael G. Heavican highlighted many of the accomplishments the state’s courts were able to achieve in 2020 while dealing with a deadly pandemic during a wide-ranging speech last week to the Nebraska Legislature.
When a masked Heavican entered the Norris Legislative Chamber, accompanied by members of a legislative escort committee, he shared elbow bumps with legislators as the procession made its way to the dais.
Nebraska State of the Judiciary - 01.21.2021 from Nebraska Judicial Branch on Vimeo.
As his fellow justices watched via livestream, Heavican began the State of the Judiciary speech by praising the members of Nebraska’s “court family” for adapting quickly to the new conditions caused by the pandemic and ensuring the state’s courts remained open and functioning.
“There is no exception – for a pandemic or otherwise – to the Nebraska Constitution’s requirement of open courts,” Heavican said. “After all, crime does not stop during a pandemic, nor does child abuse, spouse abuse, fraud or the myriad of other social issues that depend on our courts for resolution.”
Heavican noted that more than half of Nebraska Judicial Branch workers – that’s over 700 judges, clerks and staff – were in quarantine for at least two weeks throughout 2020.
The chief justice cited a 2019 pandemic planning session with the University of Nebraska Medical Center as being instrumental in making sure court operations were able to function.
In addition to distributing personal protective equipment to court personnel throughout the state, judges, lawyers and clerks had to quickly familiarize themselves with technology and software that helped to “keep courts open, even if courthouses were closed.”
Heavican said the state’s courts had already been improving the technology used in courtrooms over the past decade, making the transition to remote operations that much easier to implement. He noted video chat software like Zoom and an online court payment system as examples of how the courts were equipped to handle socially distanced justice.
While 2020 was dominated by the pandemic, racial justice was another pervasive theme in society after George Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis and the subsequent Black Lives Matters protests across the country, including in Omaha and elsewhere in Nebraska.
Heavican then pivoted to the state judiciary’s Racial Equity Initiative and the ongoing efforts to provide equal access to justice to everyone.
“No institution in this state plays a more pivotal role in ensuring equal access to justice than Nebraska’s courts,” Heavican said. “There is no place in our court system for racial discrimination or inequality.”
In addition to the steps being taken to ensure racial equality, the state’s Language Access Program helped interpret 47 different languages in Nebraska’s courts and probation offices.
Heavican described one case that involved collaborating with the Mexican Consulate Office in Omaha and a school for the deaf in Puebla, Mexico, to locate an interpreter for a deaf defendant.
Heavican also touched on the state’s probation services and problem-solving courts. He told lawmakers that it is much more cost effective to sentence a defendant to probation instead of prison – an issue Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk highlights in Legislative Bill 335, which would require judges to announce the estimated cost to the taxpayers of prison sentences.
“Probation supervision costs nearly $2,000 per person per year,” Heavican said. “Problem-solving courts cost approximately $4,000 per person per year. The cost of incarceration is approximately $41,000 per person per year. Do the math. Probation is the taxpayers’ friend.”
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