On an unusually quiet Thursday in the nation's capital, a delegation visiting from several African countries had just reached the top-floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington when a court official received a call from the State Department.

As countries across the globe imposed travel restrictions in response to the novel coronavirus, there were concerns that the visitors would be indefinitely stranded in the United States if they did not leave soon. Their tour of Washington's federal trial court would have to be cut short.

After huddling quickly for a photograph inside the ceremonial courtroom—a stately forum featuring statues of Moses and Hammurabi—the group made its way to the exit, passing prominently displayed hand sanitizer dispensers before piling into a limousine bus bound for the airport. Meanwhile, judges made preparations for handling cases amid the coronavirus crisis, a pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives and disrupted everyday existence, ushering in a period of frequent hand-washing and a widespread shunning of public places and human contact.

In nearby Alexandria, Virginia, the federal court announced Thursday it was suspending tours, naturalization proceedings and other gatherings unrelated to pending cases, citing concerns about the coronavirus. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia announced restricted access to the downtown Washington courthouse, with measures similar to those implemented in courts from California to New York.

Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

"We will continue to assess the ongoing need for the entry restrictions and update as warranted. We are taking this temporary action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and out of concern for the health and safety of the courthouse community," Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Circuit and Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the trial court said in a joint statement.

From the dispensers of hand sanitizer—always just steps and a squirt away from nearly all spots in the courthouse—to routine proceedings, judges and lawyers were already responding to COVID-19.

At a hearing in one case, the coronavirus appeared to provide some perspective.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras heard arguments in a case brought by Protect Democracy, a group seeking access to documents related to the U.S. drone strike in Iraq that killed Qassim Soleimani, a major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps who commanded Iran's elite security and intelligence forces. In the brief hearing, Contreras pressed a Protect Democracy lawyer about how, as a "practical matter," he should go about determining whether the group's public records request was so important that it should leapfrog others awaiting the government's review.

Noting the novel coronavirus' near-monopoly on the public's attention, Contreras said the early January drone strike "seems like old news." Contreras asked what "objective standards" he could apply to determine whether "one thing is more important than the next."

At one point, Contreras questioned where the drone strike would rank on a Gallup poll of recent events that grabbed the public's attention. "How high on the list should that be?" he asked. "And should I care?"

The group's lawyer, John Paredes, stressed the drone strike that killed Soleimani was an issue of "war and peace" that appeared at the time to bring the United States to the brink of war with Iran.

"This is different than an average drone strike," he said, adding that he did not mean to "diminish the importance of coronavirus" but that, more than two months after the strike, there was still a "risk of escalation into a hot war."

"This is a very serious escalation, the end of which we don't know," he said.

Protect Democracy is seeking a trove of records, but on Thursday, Paredes emphasized that the Justice Department has so far not acknowledged whether its Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion related to the drone strike on Soleimani. Immediately after the strike, the Trump administration confronted questions about whether it had legal justification for killing the Iranian military leader, with Democratic lawmakers protesting that the attack lacked congressional approval.

Paredes on Thursday said it "really shouldn't take more than five minutes, a bare minimum of five minutes," for the Justice Department to determine whether an OLC memo exists. Justice Department lawyer Kari D'Ottavio said she did not know—"at this time"—whether the office had issued an opinion. After being granted expedited processing for its records request, she said, the group was demanding an "accelerated version of expedited processing."

"They're just clearly not entitled to that," she said.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ ALM)

Contreras ordered the Justice Department to inform the group by Thursday as to whether the Office of Legal Counsel had issued an opinion. Before adjourning, he scheduled a court hearing for next week.

But the hearing, set for Thursday afternoon, came with a caveat: "Assuming people still interact with one another."

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