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Chief Justice Durant delivers virtual State of the Judiciary, asks Legislature to fund technology and fairness office
Summary
In a prerecorded address to a virtual Utah House, Chief Justice Durant outlined how courts adapted to COVID-19, warned of jury-trial backlogs and constitutional concerns, and requested $1,935,000 ongoing and $10,000 one-time for technology and staffing, plus a new office of fairness and accountability.
Chief Justice Durant told the Utah House in a prerecorded State of the Judiciary address that the pandemic forced a rapid shift to remote operations but that courts have largely kept pace with pre-pandemic workloads while facing particular strain on jury trials.
Durant said Utah courts moved quickly to virtual hearings, noting that those proceedings have involved "over 400,000 individual participants," a scale he described as a "herculean task" accomplished by court IT staff under Heidi Anderson. He said appellate and juvenile courts have largely met pre-pandemic standards, while district courts face two notable exceptions: increasing age of pending cases and the inability to…
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