ALBANY — New York City criminal and family courts are shifting to "virtual court operations" due to the COVID-19 pandemic beginning Wednesday and Thursday.

In a statement, New York's Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence K. Marks said "extraordinary times like these call for extraordinary measures."

“As we continue to calibrate court operations to meet the continually challenging and changing operational environment, the New York state court system remains open for business, maintaining essential and emergency operations.," DiFiore said. "In order to help reduce the spread of the virus and to further protect judges, court staff, attorneys, litigants and the public, by mid-week essential functions of New York City Criminal Court and New York City Family Court will commence virtual operations.”

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The city's criminal courts will move into a "second phase" of videoconferencing arraignments. All parties in court proceedings will use videoconferencing platform Skype for Business. The arraignment will be open to the public, but uniformed staff will monitor and may limit access to the arraignment part’s audience space to maintain social distancing in accordance with public health authorities’ guidelines.

All arraignments will be virtual, with the judge, prosecution and defense attorney and defendant all from remote locations, the announcement states.

Defendants who have not tested positive for COVID-19 or are not in a high-risk group will be brought to the central booking locations in Bronx, Kings, New York and Queens counties and will participate via video link in those locations. Richmond County defendants will be brought to New York Police Department holding cells at 26 Central Ave. to participate in video arraignment there.



Defendants who have tested positive for COVID-19 or are in a high-risk group will be detained pre-arraignment to participate in video arraignments as follows: Midtown Community Court for Bronx and Manhattan arraignments; and Red Hook Community Justice Center for Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island arraignments.

Family Court proceedings, including, child-protective intake cases involving removal applications, newly filed juvenile delinquency intake cases involving remand applications and emergency family offense petitions, will take place via video and teleconferencing.