Ripley courts revert to phase one after COVID positive

DONIPHAN — The courts in Ripley County will step down to operating phase one Wednesday after a courthouse employee tested positive for COVID-19.

Presiding Circuit Judge Michael Pritchett signed an order Tuesday notifying the Missouri Supreme Court of the move to a lower operating phase. It applies to both the county courts and the Doniphan Municipal Division.

“An employee in the Ripley County Courthouse has tested positive for COVID-19,” said Pritchett in an email to the Supreme Court’s communication counsel, Beth Riggert. “For that reason, courts in Ripley County will be returned to phase one …”

Pritchett said he learned of the positive case Monday evening.

The employee reportedly is among the 46 new COVID-19 cases reported since Thursday by the Ripley County Health Department, and one of 82 since Oct. 1. Thirteen cases were confirmed Monday, bringing the county’s total to 271, with five deaths.

Ripley County’s courts had been operating in phase two since June 1.

Under that operating phase, more in-person proceedings could be held and up to 25 persons were allowed in the courtroom.

“We were in phase two; we’ve been in phase two forever,” Pritchett said. “Actually, what happened a long time ago, I had encouraged not using the phase two number of up to 25.

“We’ve been trying to avoid that. We were still limited.”

Unless it was something “exceptional,” there was not that “many (25) in the courtroom at once,” he said.

Under the Missouri Supreme Court operating directives, a positive case immediately sends a court back to either a phase zero or one.

In phase one, Pritchett said, the mandate is “we have no more than 10 people in the courtroom at a time. It also restricts what kind of cases we can hear, at least, in person.”

Pritchett said Associate Circuit Judge David Swindle has a criminal docket set for Wednesday.

“It could be that there won’t be anything different as far as the case numbers on the docket (but) it may take longer to get to them because we have limited numbers in the courthouse,” Pritchett said.

The best thing for defendants to do, Pritchett said, is to contact their attorneys.

“We’ve been really fortunate; I always knew it was just a matter of time before this would happen,” Pritchett said. “… The scary part is, we don’t see any relief. How do we advance through the phases, and how do we every two weeks go back?”

Courts have to remain in any given phase for 14 days before moving to the next phase.