Grand jurors are back at work. Misdemeanants are lining up, grumbling, at the magnetometers. Most courtrooms are toasty — though still without telephones.
It was back to the usual organized chaos at Manhattan’s two criminal courthouses today, both on downtown Centre Street and both without electricity, heat, phones and computers all last week — the hardest hit courthouses in the city.
Fifteen trials — in various stages of progress before Sandy struck — remain stalled to a halt, with their jurors told not to return to court until Wednesday. No prisoners are being driven in from jail for their court dates today. Still, things were heading back to normal after a week of extraordinary effort, officials said.
“We never shut down arraignments, except on Tuesday, when everyone was told to stay at home,” said Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson, the chief administrative judge for non-felony cases and Criminal Court arraignments.
“We kept arraignments going by generator,” she said. “The DA’s office had no power at all until Friday. They had to handwrite their complaints. We had two clerks sleeping here overnight. One would take case files up to the Bronx to do the data entry, so that our calendars could be kept up to date.
“People who lost their homes — court officers who lived in Long Beach — still came here,” she said. “All of our staff are from the outer boroughs, and many of the judges live downtown. But people arrested especially before the hurricane really had to see a judge. They had to be arraigned.”
For the more serious perps — Manhattan’s jailed felony defendants — things are off to a slower start.
“We had 15 jury trials going on,” when Sandy struck, said Justice Michael Obus, the chief administrative judge for Manhattan Supreme Court. “Jurors were all notified not to come in until Wednesday. We were concerned partly about staffing, and also we weren’t sure if our computers or phones would be working in time.”
With no trials and no inmates to deal with, felony court staff is better able to use today to reschedule all the defendant cases from last week, the judge said. “Counsel will be notified and we’ll be setting dates for a few weeks from now,” he said.
That’s easier said than done, noted one court clerk, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of administrative constrictions against press interviews.
“We have no phones, and email is sporadic, so we might have to resort to writing and mailing letters” to alert lawyers and defendants to their rain dates — or “Hurricane Dates” — from last week’s canceled court dates, the clerk said.