Travis County's Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, Austin, Texas. Photo: Google maps

Zoom stations are popping up in the Travis County criminal courthouse in Austin.

Complete with computer, webcam, microphone—plus hand sanitizer and gloves—the Zoom stations will allow unincarcerated criminal-defendants to join remote plea hearings to resolve their cases, which have been put on hold since March, said Debra Hale, Travis County criminal court administrator.

Aside from Travis County, Harris County is exploring a similar idea.

"The county is investigating the ability to have computers or tablets at local libraries or JP courts to increase remote access for the litigants and the public," said Harris County's COVID-19 operating plan.

Read more: Conference Center Courtrooms? Harris County Judges Searching for Space for Socially Distanced Voir Dire

Remote court proceedings have become nearly ubiquitous across the United States because of shuttered courthouses in the COVID-19 pandemic. But there is a growing concern that the digital divide would leave some people out of the courts' technological revolution.

In what could be the start nationwide trend, these Texas counties are among courts in at least four states that are creating public computer stations for litigants to connect to video conference court proceedings.

Aside from Texas, video conferencing kiosks are popping up across Idaho—in libraries, conference centers, fair grounds and courthouses—plus in an Illinois county's law library and some Iowa courthouses, said Danielle Hirsch, principal court management consultant with the National Center for State Courts in Denver.

She thinks the Zoom kiosk idea will keep spreading across the nation.

"The primary solution for those kiosks is to make sure, in an increasing attention to remote proceedings and remote pleadings, that people for whom—either their internet is not strong enough to participate remotely, or they don't have enough cell phone minutes or data, or they just have technical illiteracy—that they are not barred from the court," Hirsch said.

Although some of the defendants who use Travis County's new Zoom stations may lack access to technology to connect to a remote hearing, breaching the digital divide wasn't the immediate goal of launching the project.

Hale, the court administrator, explained that social distancing isn't possible in the small elevators or stairwells of the nine-story Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center in Austin. That's why judges will do the plea hearings over Zoom.

However, judges still needed defendants to appear at the courthouse in-person. They must sign their names and give their fingerprints after entering their pleas.

There will be deputies and court staff on the first floor, where the Zoom stations will be set up, to help the defendants connect to their hearings. Stations will be in private rooms with closed doors for confidential attorney-client communications.

To make sure that there are not too many defendants appearing at the same time, Hale said the criminal courts will operate on staggered schedules.

"I feel good about it, because first of all, we're focusing on those defendants who want to take care of their cases, and we are allowing them the opportunity to do that. We're providing a lot of assistance on the first floor," Hale said. "We're meeting all the requirements for COVID compliance: We have masks and gloves and hand sanitizer, and distancing when people are waiting."