COVID-19 killed in-person depositions, in-person hearings, and in-person mediations, but we cannot allow COVID-19 to kill in-person jury trials. Mandatory online jury trials is an idea whose time has not come because it could be the final nail in the coffin of in-person jury trials.

The founders of our country created a sacrosanct Bill of Rights in the first 10 amendments of our Constitution. Three of those 10 amendments explicitly mention and protect jury trials. The Fifth Amendment provides for grand juries in criminal cases, the Sixth Amendment provides for jury trials in criminal cases, and the Seventh Amendment provides for jury trials in civil cases. In fact, the right to trial by jury is fundamental to all other rights in our Constitution. Thomas Jefferson recognized this when he wrote that the jury "is the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." The Texas Constitution likewise recognizes and protects the right to trial by jury by providing that the "right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate."