Hub and Spoke. Audio Collective.

This is Rumble Strip America Heilman.

Pre-Cobid, we had a judge here 99% of the time.

Everybody would be seeing a judge.

Now, of course, the only judge they see is a 54-inch screen.

Ereaiments and trials and stuff like that done by, you know, in camera, it's bad.

It's bad news.

That's bad news.

That's George Contoys. He works as a court officer at the Orange County Courthouse in Chelsea, Vermont.

He helps people fill out their paperwork if they need it.

He sits in holding cells with defendants. He tells people where the bathroom is.

Sort of by definition, courthouses are settings for high drama,

and George is famous for keeping things smooth and civilized.

But since COVID, he has spent more time at home farming than at the courthouse.

Many hearings are still being held remotely, including arraignments, which are sort of ground zero of all criminal cases.

An arraignment is the first time the defendants appear in front of a judge.

It's where they're informed of their charges and where they enter a plea, and a lot of times it's the very first time

they meet or even see their attorney if it's a public defender.

But since COVID nobody's seeing much of anyone in person. The judge might be at home, the defense

attorney's in his office, the state's attorney is in some other office, and the defendants

on the phone or lodged in jail as the case may be and they're all meeting on a scratchy channel called WebX.

It is not optimal and it does not seem to be going away.

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