Jury trials in Iowa won’t be resuming until nearly a year after they were initially postponed in the wake of COVID-19.

The Iowa Supreme Court issued an order on November 10th postponing jury trials until February 1st, unless a jury was sworn in prior to November 16th. This comes as the state has seen record breaking COVID-19 case numbers and hospitalizations after jury trials were allowed to resume in September following their postponement in March. Guthrie County Attorney Brenna Bird says the courthouse was just about to have a jury trial when the order was issued, “Well, we were disappointed because we have a number of important cases that we have been preparing for trial but I do understand why the court did that due to the rise of COVID-19 cases and we do want to make sure that our trials are safe and we’re doing things the right way. So we understand it and we will be prepared to try our cases as soon as that’s allowed by the court, which right now February is the earliest.”

Jury trials that were scheduled almost every week in November and December will now be pushed to February, when the County plans to use the First Baptist Church and the Guthrie County Fairgrounds as a backup location for jury selection that abides by social distancing. Bird says all other court proceedings can occur in person at this time, though the judge may decide whether to hold a hearing over video conference instead.