On a typical day in courtroom 4D, the arraignment court for the newly arrested, Judge Eileen Paley might have set a bond and kept him in custody just long enough to find resources and services to help him.
But the justice system is doing all it can to reduce the number of inmates in the county's two jails amid the coronavirus pandemic. So Paley released the man on his own recognizance, with his next court date likely to be set well into the future.
Only 12 defendants made appearances Thursday in 4D, which in normal times can process well more than 100 misdemeanor and felony offenders in a day.
Law-enforcement agencies in Franklin County and throughout the state are being advised by courts and prosecutors to arrest only those who pose a threat to society and to issue summonses for non-violent offenses.
"For the most part, we're only seeing violent offenders now," with domestic-violence arrests dominating the meager docket, Paley said.
Bit by bit, the county's jail population is falling. On Thursday afternoon, the inmate count was 1,735, down from 1,950 when the reduction effort began on March 13.
Smaller counties also are showing decreases, including Delaware County, where the average daily inmate count of 220 was down on Thursday to 151.
Other county jails have seen more dramatic decreases. In Cuyahoga County, where Common Pleas judges have been aggressively trying to resolve felony cases since last week, the jail population dropped from 1,978 on March 11 to 1,321 as of Thursday morning.
"It's not a question of if the coronavirus will be in our jail, but when," said Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Administrative Judge Brendan Sheehan.
When the outbreak hits, the goal is to have enough room in the jail to isolate those who test positive for COVID-19, he said.
The Ohio Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is among the organizations advocating for jailing as few defendants as possible, other than those who "present a substantial risk of harm."
Jails, "with communal confinement in close quarters, are essentially a 'cruise ship' environment," according to a statement issued Tuesday by the group. "In Ohio, we will see coronavirus spread rapidly through our jails and prisons unless our officials take prompt and effective action."
Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor on Thursday praised the actions taken by local courts, including those to reduce jail populations.
She reiterated many of the suggestions she made last week in an email to the state's judges about how to ensure access to the judicial system while being mindful of public health concerns.
Franklin County Common Pleas and Municipal courts have joined courts around the state in issuing administrative orders that suspended many court functions for the month to come, including delaying most civil and criminal matters.
Because Ohio doesn't have a unified court system, O'Connor said she does not have the power as chief justice to issue orders that are binding on all judges in the state to take such steps.
But she said the Ohio Revised Code gives individual judges the power to continue cases beyond speedy-trial deadlines on "reasonable grounds," which include an active public-health emergency.
Many judges across the state, including in Franklin County, have already reached that conclusion and postponed cases..
O'Connor also announced the the Supreme Court will make $4 million available in grant money to help counties obtain video-conferencing technology that allows some court business to be done without face-to-face interaction among the parties.
On the issue of reducing jail populations, she encouraged administrators to identify inmates who are in high-risk groups should they contract coronavirus, including those who are older or have health conditions, to determine "if they can be safely released."
The older defendant who appeared Thursday in Franklin County's arraignment court fell into that category, Paley said.
"My job is to protect the community, and that includes the defendant," she said.
She said making decisions about who stays in jail and who gets released during the pandemic "is the hardest thing I've ever done. You want to be darn sure that they should be there."
The risks to the health of inmates extends to that of sheriff's deputies and other who work in the jails.
"It's a tremendous risk," said Keith Ferrell, president of Capital City Lodge No. 9 Fraternal Order of Police. "We're actively working with management to make it as safe an environment as possible, but there are no good answers. It's a bad situation all around."
Suggestions that officers on the streets think long and hard about who they bring to jail is merely an extension of the discretion officers already try to employ, he said.
"Those decisions come into play every day," Ferrell said. "Arresting someone isn't always the best course of action. Maybe now that needs to be in the back of our mind even more. But I don't want anyone to think they have a free pass to go out and commit crime."
Many court and jail officials said criminal-justice reforms in recent years and efforts to find alternatives to incarceration had already limited the number of people in jail who don't pose a genuine threat to public safety.
But the sudden decline in jail populations around the state, combined with assurances from officials that dangerous people aren't being turned loose, is likely to lead to questions down the road about whether similarly aggressive steps should have been taken long ago.
Franklin County Municipal Court Administrative Judge Ted Barrows said he's been thinking along those lines.
"When we come out of this," he said, "we may decide there's no reason to go back to the way things were before."
Dispatch reporter Randy Ludlow contributed to this story.
jfutty@dispatch.com
@johnfutty
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