by Liz Daube
Staff Writer
The two courtrooms at Florida Coastal School of Law’s new building in the Baymeadows area are among the most technologically advanced in the United States, and the local legal community is starting to take advantage of them.
Attorneys recently used Florida Coastal’s trial courtroom as the site for a special master hearing on the City of Neptune Beach’s zoning rejection of a planned Wal-mart development. Before that, the First District Court of Appeals used the school’s appellate courtroom for oral arguments. Margaret Dees, Florida Coastal’s director of institutional advancement, said the school wants to accommodate more hearings, trials and other proceedings in coming months.
“We want to help where we can,” she said. “If the [County] Courthouse had to have an overflow courtroom, our courtroom could be it.”
The Florida Coastal courtrooms are outfitted with typical features like podiums, deliberation rooms and audience seating. (The big difference between the two, according to Dees, is the trial courtroom has a witness box and jury box, while the appellate one lacks both.) They also have new technology, like video screens throughout the room, which attorneys can use to show evidence to a judge, jurors and audience at the same time.
As city government plans for a new County Courthouse have been delayed in recent years, the current Downtown courthouse has experienced a significant lack of space. Court administrator Britt Beasley said the County Courthouse is constantly adjusting to an ever-increasing number of criminal and civil cases and, in turn, more judges.
“We’re having to move the State Attorney’s Office out of here as fast as we can just to make room,” said Beasley.
He said renovations to create more courtrooms and offices will start in March, when the State Attorney’s move to City Hall Annex will be complete. Similar adjustments are planned for some Clerk of Court departments as well, according to Chief Judge Donald Moran. He said the legal community has been talking about the high-tech Florida Coastal courtrooms, although he has no current plans to arrange trials there.
“If the lawyers in a particular case agreed, I think it would be a good educational tool,” said Moran. “I’m also aware that it’s higher technology than we have out here. It’s kind of the courthouse of the future ... We’d be pleased to try it.”
Moran added any County Courthouse arrangements with Florida Coastal would be an educational “partnership” – not an “annex” solution to courthouse overcrowding. Security might be an issue for criminal cases, he said, but a few civil cases might take advantage of the school’s technology.
“In our courtrooms, you have to take an exhibit and pass it from juror to juror. In some cases, attorneys bring in equipment that we don’t have access to,” said Moran.
He said attorneys have had to run wires in the County Courthouse to set up individual screens for jurors to view detailed evidence. Locating depositions that prove a witness’ previous statement can also prove difficult without the new technology, Moran added. “Depositions are barcoded ... [but] without the barcoding and the technology, you have to just wade through,” he said. “It [a digital presentation] is a much more professional presentation. It’s much more effective. People have a better understanding of the evidence, so they can make a better decision.”
Chris White and Karl Sanders, the attorneys who opposed each on the Neptune Beach zoning dispute hearing, agreed on the efficiency and quality provided by Florida Coastal’s high-tech courtrooms.
“They were absolutely outstanding, state-of-the art facilities unlike anything I’ve ever used before,” said Sanders. “The witness could even mark up the document on the screen with a finger to focus on a particular aspect of a photograph.”
White said he found the courtrooms “just as good, if not better than, the facilities at the Federal Courthouse.” The audiovisual options were the biggest advantage for him, White said, “once you figure out how to work it – there’s a little bit of a learning curve.”
Dees said Florida Coastal students will benefit from both using the technology themselves and observing cases. The courtrooms are frequently used as classrooms right now, she said, but more time could be allotted for hearings and trials as the school renovates and creates classrooms on the fifth floor of its new building.
Beasley said the Florida Coastal courtrooms can’t solve the Courthouse’s overcrowding problems because a central location for administration is necessary. Besides Moran’s security concerns, Beasley said transporting the necessary jurors, bailiffs, court reporters and Clerk of Court representatives on a regular basis would reduce efficiency.
“What we need is for the City to provide us with the appropriate venue,” he said. “I think it’s wonderful that Florida Coastal School of Law is willing to help us ... but I don’t think that overrides the need for an appropriate venue for administering justice. That’s what a courthouse is.”