It was only six months for Jessica Morton serving as the Greene County Magistrate Judge before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and she has been rolling with the changes since then.

The northeastern Wisconsin native moved back to Iowa, where most of her family is from, and graduated law school from the University of Iowa. After clerking for a lobby organization in Washington, D.C., Morton tells Raccoon Valley Radio she wanted to be the kind of lawyer that did good in the community and changed people’s lives for the better. She then began a private practice in Carroll County before taking on her other role as magistrate judge. 

Morton started serving in her newer role in September of 2019, and then the pandemic swept across the globe and the Iowa Supreme Court made several supervisory orders earlier this summer. She talks about how she handled her caseload, when hearings and trials started slowing down.

“In criminal court, I gave everyone the opportunity to have their issue dealt with right away. So we could have it by phone, or by video conference. They, of course, have the right to an in-person hearing, so if they wanted to wait, we’d let them wait. Thankfully, we didn’t fall too far behind. We don’t have a big backlog in our docket in Greene County.”

Morton believes that with the changes of how people can have their hearings, she says it’s also helped in other aspects as well.

“One issue we have in Greene County is that there is a limited number of attorneys on our court-appointed list. Now we can kind of reach out tentacles a little further because hearings aren’t necessarily in-person. So we can down to some court-appointed attorneys in Des Moines or in Dallas County, because they know they’ll be able to appear by phone if they need to.”

Morton adds other changes due to the pandemic including requiring masks when in the courtroom, providing face shields for those testifying, and holding some hearings in the main courtroom on the third floor of the Greene County Courthouse.