District Judges Thomas Thrash (from left), Mark Cohen and Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia.

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a singular and dramatic change at the federal courthouse in downtown Atlanta. 

Long-established policies created by the Judicial Conference of the United States and adopted by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia barred visual or audio recording devices and live broadcasts from the downtown Atlanta courthouse without a court order. Those have now been loosened due to the pandemic.

Federal judges in Atlanta, Rome, Gainesville and Newnan may now use Zoom and other technology to conduct public hearings in real time without bringing everyone into the courtroom.

Any recording—including audio, video, or still screen shots—of Zoom proceedings is prohibited, and anyone doing so is subject to sanctions, said Chief Judge Thomas Thrash.  "There is to be only one record of a proceedings in federal court," he said.  "If you start letting people record and re-transmit bits and pieces of court proceedings, that will be a disaster."

A longtime ban prohibiting the public from bringing electronic devices into district courthouses without an order also remains in force, and traditional radio and television broadcasting is still barred, said Kevin Weimer, the district's chief deputy clerk.   

The Northern District isn't alone in adapting to the pandemic by turning to technology like Zoom. Last month, the Supreme Court of Georgia instituted oral arguments via Zoom. The Georgia Court of Appeals followed suit on Wednesday with Chief Judge Stephen Dillard presiding in the courtroom at the downtown Judicial Center while Judges Brian Rickman and Trent Brown and counsel joined in remotely.

On Monday, even the U.S. Supreme Court dipped into remote waters as the highest court in the land for the first time in its history. Still camera-shy, the justices heard oral arguments by telephone with real time public access to the audio. 

Videoconferencing in the Northern District isn't unprecedented, but it has largely been inaccessible to all but a few participants, Thrash said.

The 2020 Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act changed all that, he explained. The emergency legislation loosened the traditional ban on remote public access to federal court proceedings and offered judges the opportunity to conduct court business at a time when health and safety concerns made court hearings potentially inaccessible.

Just don't get used to it, the chief judge said. In an April 16 court order inaugurating the practice, the judge said that wide use of video conferencing with attendant public access "is intended to be temporary" and will expire once the Judicial Conference decides that current emergency operating conditions are no longer warranted. 

Thrash said he has left it up to each judge to decide to what extent they want to use Zoom. All courtroom deputies have been trained in using Zoom and can now serve as hosts for each judge.

Thrash said he used Zoom to accept a guilty plea last week.

District Judge Steve Jones has also turned to Zoom after his inaugural effort to allow the public to listen in on a teleconference hearing was repeatedly disrupted by unruly members of the public who failed to mute their phones.

The Zoom hearing went better. During a second civil challenge to the state's gun law,  Jones heard from nine attorneys while members of the public were muted by his courtroom deputy.  Jones was at home but wore his robe. "I wanted it to be just like in court," he said.

"I feel like everything I could have gotten in the courtroom, I got off Zoom," he said.

Weimer said that anyone who is disruptive also can be disconnected from a Zoom proceeding, just as a bailiff would remove an unruly observer from a courtroom.

District Judge Mark Cohen also holds hearings via Zoom, including sentencings, which he said are now feasible because Zoom allows him to see a defendant. "I need to see the defendant … to determine the plea is voluntary," he said.  "If I just hear him over the phone, I can't make the right, credible determination."

"I want the defendant to see and hear me," Cohen added. "That's why Zoom is a situation that lends itself to criminal proceedings."

Cohen also said that Zoom has a function that allows lawyers and their clients to conference privately during a Zoom session.

"I think it is great to have this technology available," he said.  "It allows us not to put off some of criminal proceedings that should be heard sooner rather than later."

This article has been updated to clarify that the longtime courthouse ban on traditional radio and television broadcasting remains in force.