New Minnesota ruling may make Stearns Courthouse move unnecessary

ST. CLOUD — The Stearns County Courthouse relocation plans face challenges as the Minnesota Judicial Council makes Zoom hearings permanent.

As Stearns County looks to move its courthouse and jail from downtown St. Cloud to a new justice center to be built on undeveloped land, costing up to $325 million, the Minnesota Judicial Council on July 18 decided to make Zoom hearings a permanent feature post-pandemic.

“Now that the branch has a permanent statewide policy regarding hearings, the role of Zoom hearings and their impact on space will be something that will inform the (courthouse’s) final design,” Judicial Court Administrator George Lock said.

The prospective move comes as the Stearns County District 7 Court currently holds 75% of its hearings on Zoom, according to information obtained by the St. Cloud Times via the Freedom of Information Act. Stearns County looks to move after a 2022 study, which was started pre-pandemic in 2019, said the courthouse’s 10 courtrooms aren’t enough, and the county needs to expand to 15, citing St. Cloud’s growing population.

However, the new statewide policy is expected to increase the number of in-person cases in Stearns County compared to the last four years, Lock said. How much of an increase depends on if the county seeks any exemptions to the policy and any further action by the statewide court system.

Stearns County judges currently hear Zoom cases while sitting in empty courtrooms with participating parties appearing on a pull-out screen, citing the county’s hybrid schedule, meaning judges hear both remote and in-person cases on the same day.

This doesn’t have to be the case, according to Judicial Branch Director of Public Affairs Kim Pleticha. She said in “a remote hearing, judges and staff can appear from anywhere: home, chamber or courtroom.” This means expanding the number of courtrooms may not be necessary if the court would carefully evaluate its resources and schedule.

Lock said since Stearns County takes the hybrid approach to allow for flexible scheduling, changing the policy would impact public defenders the most.

“In the middle of COVID, when (Zoom hearings) developed, the public defenders were not resourced very well…so to maximize their availability, we just basically scheduled whenever is necessary,” Lock said. “Some days the judge would be like, ‘I'm doing an in-person hearing right now. That's finished. I'm going to jump into a Zoom hearing right now, and I may jump back to an in-person hearing.’ (Our hybrid model is) really a preference and trying to maximize the resources that were available to us.”

The Minnesota Judicial Council decided, beginning this upcoming February, that many criminal hearings — such as first appearances, arraignments, bail hearings, initial Rule 8 appearances and initial probation violations — along with nonmandatory misdemeanors, petty misdemeanors, civil cases, family cases and most housing hearings, will be conducted via Zoom. Exceptions include jury trials, evidentiary hearings, settlements and some civil case trials.

The remaining criminal hearings, adoptions, treatment court and domestic abuse cases will be heard in-person. Stearns County currently hears misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor and some felony sentence hearings alongside Rule 20 hearings, plea hearings and omnibus waivers over Zoom, which will now be in-person under the new rules, contributing to Lock’s assumption of increased in-person hearings compared to recent years.

These now in-person cases take more time and space, Lock said, saying a murder trail hearing requires more resources than a speeding ticket hearing.

A push to keep the courthouse downtown

City Council member George Hontos is asking the St. Cloud City Council to approve a resolution urging the Stearns County Board of Commissioners to reconsider relocating the courthouse to an empty field somewhere, and to keep the facility in downtown St. Cloud instead.

Hontos, who used to own a small business, told the St. Cloud Times the move would be detrimental to the area’s economic viability, something the city is trying to bolster with its efforts to revitalize the central hub.

“The large number of employees that work at the county court facilities…(have) been very good neighbors and participants in the activities downtown,” Hontos said. “I think losing that large number of employees, (coupled with) the secondary impact of bail bondsmen and attorneys who may slowly move out of downtown, would be detrimental.”

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Lock said moving the courthouse, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, with the jail will help reduce the cost of transporting inmates to the facility. He said the court has 10 to 20 inmate hearings a day, which currently happen via Zoom, but this will likely change with the court system’s new policy.

“We can get a number of individuals…in custody, they need to be in that courtroom, and they typically need to be done by noon,” Lock said. “To have a court and a jail separate means that the jail essentially has to transport all those individuals to court on time to make sure that we can get those through before the 12 o'clock cut off.”

The court administrator also said having these inmates undergo these hearings on Zoom takes extra time and increases scheduling logistics in terms of ensuring inmates have access to the appropriate technology at the right time.

A Minnesota Judicial Branch release applauds the remote format, citing hearing participants preferring the Zoom approach.

“In a statewide survey of court hearing participants, remote hearing attendees reported fewer barriers to attending their hearings than those who attended in person, such as taking time off work, travel and impacts on their physical or mental health,” the release states.

What’s happening with the proposed Justice Center?

The Stearns County Board of Commissioners in July approved designing a new justice center with a 270 bed jail, law enforcement center, county attorney’s office, community corrections/probation, courts and 14 courtrooms, according to the county’s website . This facility is to be constructed on undeveloped land in St. Cloud, the exact site is to be determined.

Stearns County voters will be asked to approve a ⅜ cent sales tax to help fund the project, which will cost up to $325 million. If voters turn out against the sales tax, it will increase property taxes by $185 annually. This amount would completely cover the project’s cost, the county’s website states. Keeping the courthouse downtown and moving the jail to an undeveloped lot would cost an additional $2 million per year in operational expenses, according to the county.

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The county’s website states implementing the sales tax will take some of the financial burden off county residents, saying out-of-county shoppers will cover 55% of the costs. Each Stearns County household will see an annual $85 increase in costs.

Stearns County states it needs a new jail as it outgrew its current facility. Last year, the county spent $1.1 million sending inmates to other counties, according to data obtained by the St. Cloud Times via a St. Cloud Times records request. This cost is also in part due to a now-permanent COVID-19 policy that limits cell capacity to one inmate rather than two.

Corey Schmidt covers local government for the St. Cloud Times. He can be reached at cschmidt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: New Minnesota ruling may make Stearns Courthouse move unnecessary