The week-long delay in the murder trial of a Stockton Springs mother accused of killing her 3-year-old son due to a lawyer’s positive COVID test is not the first court procedure to be disrupted by the coronavirus, and it’s unlikely to be the last.
Maine judges have reported a handful of hiccups similar to the delay in the Waldo County case, but the court system is not keeping an official count of COVID-related delays.
Still, the COVID-related disruptions are likely to be part of normal operations with the court system back open and trying to work through a huge backlog of pending criminal cases that built up as courts curtailed operations during the pandemic.
The jury trial of Jessica Trefethen, 36, began Oct. 5 at the Waldo Judicial Center in Belfast. It was scheduled to resume last Tuesday after the three-day weekend. But the lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea, told the court she had tested positive for the coronavirus.
After meeting privately with each juror to see if they could return, Superior Court Justice Robert Murray announced the trial would take a week off and resume Monday before the jury of 16 Waldo County residents, including four alternates.
As of Friday, the trial was to resume Monday morning with the cross examination of a Maine State Police detective about an interview with the defendant prior to her arrest.
As jurors in the Belfast trial were hearing testimony on Oct. 7 in Trefethen’s trial, Superior Court Justice Stephen Nelson was forced to delay the sentencing of convicted killer Bobby Nightingale at a Houlton courthouse after a member of the defense team tested positive for the virus.
In August, a jury found Nightingale, 40, of Presque Isle guilty of murdering Roger Ellis, 51, and Allen Curtis, 25, of Castle Hill, who were found shot to death in Ellis’ 2007 red Silverado pickup truck on Aug. 13, 2019.
Nightingale’s sentencing had not been reset as of Friday.
While the Belfast trial appears to be the only jury trial in state court that has been delayed a full week, judges have reported that jury selection in a few cases has been delayed due to potential jurors testing positive for the coronavirus.
In at least one case, an alternate replaced a juror with COVID, and the trial was not delayed, according to Barbara Cardone, spokesperson for the court system. In another, a trial was forced to take a break when the judge tested positive.
In other instances, the start of jury trials has been delayed because a juror, attorney or witness tested positive, she said. Some jury-waived trials also have been delayed, but they are easier to reschedule or resume because the court doesn’t have to consider jurors’ schedules.
If more jurors than the alternates had been unable to attend the trial next week, Murray most likely would have been forced to declare a mistrial because a criminal jury in Maine must be made up of 12 people. In that scenario, a new trial would have to be set and a new jury would have to be selected.
How soon that could happen would depend on the judges’, prosecutors’ and defense attorneys’ calendars, but a six-month delay would not be unusual. A second trial also could be moved to a different county if a judge concluded the publicity from the unfinished trial made it difficult, if not impossible, to choose an unbiased jury in the same county due to news coverage.
Just one trial in Maine’s federal courts has been affected because a participant contracted the coronavirus, according to Chief Clerk Christa Berry.
In May, U.S. District Judge Jon Levy declared a mistrial in the case of a Buxton man who allegedly threatened to kill Jews after a witness learned he had tested positive for COVID-19.
Brian Dennison, 25, of Buxton is charged with one count of transmitting a threat through interstate communication for allegedly posting on Twitter, “I’m going to kill jews with my ar15 tomorrow” on the second day of Rosh Hashanah in September 2021. He has pleaded not guilty.
Dennison’s retrial has not been rescheduled, as he has appealed Levy’s refusal to dismiss the charge against him to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, arguing that the refusal violates the double jeopardy clause in the U.S. Constitution, which says that defendants cannot be tried for the same conduct more than once.
A retrial won’t be set in that case until the appellate court rules.
Whether courts in Maine and the nation are properly handling COVID-related delays in proceedings ultimately will be decided by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court and the U.S. Supreme Court.
