HOME COURT ADVANTAGE: Jasper County’s courtrooms are getting a major technological overhaul

Two courtrooms in the Jasper County Courthouse, including the grand courtroom, are getting 21st century improvements while still maintaining their historic aesthetics. County attorney Scott Nicholson says the project will not only benefit trial proceedings, it will also install much needed infrastructure.

Apart from the roughly $20,000 pre-installation work, the project will cost the county nothing. Nicholson told supervisors at their April 6 meeting the upgrades and updated equipment would be funded by the state.

Toward the end of 2020, the State of Iowa selected 100 courtrooms in need of electronic upgrades and could become “hybrid courtrooms,” Nicholson said. Using CARES Act dollars, the equipment would allow trials and court hearings in rooms 303 and 306 to be conducted virtually, in-person or both.

“Fortunately for Jasper County, two of our three courtrooms were selected for this project,” Nicholson said. “… They’re $55,000 packages per courtroom. They consist of large screen televisions, cameras, there is also a document projector … There’s also going to be several microphones placed.”

Most important, he added, are the two lapel microphones allowing those using them to speak while mobile in the courtroom. Each courtroom would have two, 70-inch TV screens mounted in places where the public, jury, judge and lawyers can see them. A third screen will be on a moving cart.

Four cameras will be placed in each courtroom, which Nicholson said would allow for hybrid hearings. During complicated trials, experts are flown in from across the country to testify. To do this can be expensive. The state may pay for the testimony, the county pays for transportation, meals and other costs.

“With this technology, just as an example, some of these non-necessary experts can testify from wherever they live by video,” Nicholson said, noting the remote testimony isn’t viable for every expert. “(But) we don’t have to pay for them to come here just to say, ‘Yes, I ran this test and here my results.’”

Trials from inside the two affected courtrooms could also be broadcasted live on the county’s website. If someone wanted to view a murder trial from their home, this new technology would allow people the capabilities to do so without having to be inside the courthouse.

The hybrid hearings could allow for speedier cases, too. Jasper County has never been able to hold hybrid-style proceedings before, and not many courtrooms in Iowa have it, Nicholson said. The last electronic upgrade the grand courtroom received was a new speaker system in 2013 or 2014.

New speakers are also included in the state’s package. The technology the two courtrooms had installed before will be transferred to the third courtroom, allowing it to ultimately receive an upgrade as well.

“So all three courtrooms will benefit from this project electronically,” Nicholson said. “I’ve always bragged about our grand courtroom. I’ve been to a lot of courtrooms in the state. There are a lot of nice courtrooms in the state but I think ours is one of the best.”

Jasper County Maintenance Director Adam Sparks contacted an electrician to acquire estimates for the extra pre-installation work.

To install the $55,000 worth of equipment in the courtroom of room 303, Nicholson said it would approximately cost maintenance $2,500. Unlike the grand courtroom, there’s enough exposed conduits in room 303 that it “wouldn’t take much” to install the new appliances and gadgetry.

Both the maintenance department and the attorney’s office want to keep the historical integrity of the grand courtroom intact. So it will inevitably be more expensive to install the electronics needed to handle the state-funded equipment and make sure no wires will be exposed on the floor or walls.

“We don’t want to harm the historic characteristic of the courtroom,” Nicholson said. “And so what Adam has determined the electrician that he brought in is we’re probably going to have to pull up the carpet that we just put down last year … We’re going to have to make some trenches in the flooring.”

Nicholson said about $16,000-$17,000 is needed for the grand courtroom pre-install work. He reasoned the almost $20,000 expense would net the county another $110,000 in electronics from the State of Iowa. If the grand courtroom can get new electronics, Nicholson said it could be one of the best in the state.

Every five years, there’s discussions about “regional courthouses,” Nicholson said. Jasper County was able to safely choose jurors during the pandemic because of the abundance of space in the grand courtroom.

“If we get these electronic upgrades (and) if that talk about regional courthouses come around again, we will be one of the frontrunners in our judicial district to be a regional courthouse,” Nicholson said. “Because we have the electronic upgrades, and we’ve never had them.”

Convinced by Nicholson’s pitched, the Jasper County Board of Supervisors approved a $20,000 expenditure for improvements to courtrooms 303 and 306.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com