MIAMI _ On a recent Friday, the judges presiding over juvenile court cases in Broward County were running low on good choices.
A teenage girl appeared before Judge Michael Usan to face trespassing charges. Normally, for such a minor offense, the girl would be sent home to await disposition of the case. But she had defied a previous stay-at-home order, and prosecutors wanted the girl to remain locked up.
The Broward Juvenile Detention Center, however, wasn't an option. The night before, a lockup employee had tested positive for the extremely contagious coronavirus, and youths destined for detention in the county all were being diverted to Miami.
"I'm going to give you another chance with home detention," Usan finally decided, addressing the girl directly through a Zoom teleconference call. "Don't make me regret this."
For about a month, Broward judges who oversee juvenile court cases have discharged justice to their young defendants under exceptional circumstances: No one makes their first appearance before a judge in person anymore. Not adult defendants. Not children. The halls of justice are no longer open to the public. Coronavirus closed them.
Loved ones no longer crowd the wooden pews of the courtrooms, offering support to defendants and waiting to hear their friends' and relatives' fate.
But the justice system has kept on churning.
Juvenile justice hearings still happen these days, only via Zoom. Defendants make their case for home detention through muffling, loud cracks and breaks in the conversation. Sometimes public defenders roll their eyes or change their backgrounds.
On Friday, after weeks of heated email exchanges between the state Department of Juvenile Justice and the Broward Public Defender's Office, DJJ administrators acknowledged an employee at the Fort Lauderdale detention center had been carrying the lethal virus.
"This is only a trespass case," Assistant Public Defender Kelsey Moldof said, while lobbying for her client's release. "Based on the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that the child can't even be held in the Broward Detention Center as a result of someone testing positive there," she added, the girl deserved another chance to await her fate in the safety of her parents' home.
Usan arranged for the girl _ the Miami Herald is not naming her because she is a minor _ to be fitted with a GPS ankle-monitor while awaiting trial or a guilty plea. She had turned herself in on the trespass charges, which worked in her favor.
"But you need to understand that I don't care what kind of viruses are out there or anything else that goes on, (if) you fail to comply with this order to the letter, you'll be spending 21 days in secure detention," said judge said.
The Miami Herald was granted permission by the county's chief juvenile court judge, Michael Orlando, to observe the proceedings through a Zoom link.
Much of what unfolds is as it has always been: Public defenders, who represent most of the teens who are arrested, argue for the youths to be sent home. Prosecutors lobby judges to hold the kids in detention. Under Florida law, kids cannot be held longer than 21 days before they are moved out of the lockup, either back home or to a DJJ-affiliated program.
One youth registered a particularly high score on an assessment scale _ a high score is bad _ when he was charged with grand theft auto, trespassing, possession of a firearm by a minor and driving without a valid driver's license. The alleged misconduct normally would have landed him in the detention center for 21 days.
Even the boy's father wanted him to remain locked up. The youth and his brothers had a history of running away, he said _ this time, from their mother's home in South Carolina.
"They keep runnin' away and runnin' away and runnin' away," the father said.
The boy's lawyer, however, lobbied for release.
"I do understand the seriousness of these allegations," Stephanie Alliston said. But she argued the youth would not be safe in detention in light of the state's unwillingness to test children for the coronavirus.
"I do think it is a health concern," she said.
Judge Stacy Ross sided with the youth's father. Off the boy went to the lockup.
The coronavirus pandemic is affecting juvenile court in other ways. Petty offenses become serious ones if they occur amid the public health emergency, when juveniles are supposed to be at home. Serious charges become severe ones. With enough points on the state's assessment scale, a youth can move from home detention to lockup.
Earlier this week, a youth appeared in court to face grand theft and loitering charges _ but the case was enhanced from a third-degree felony to a first-degree one due to the state of emergency.
That would be enough to land him in detention for 21 days. His public defender, Kia Love, argued the youth shouldn't be treated more harshly because his alleged offense occurred amid a pandemic.
"Not making light of the crime," Love said, "but it was non-violent."
"Are we going to let you sit there for three weeks" in the lockup, "or are you somebody that is going to make an effort under the circumstances to work with us on house arrest?" Orlando asked the boy.
The young man asked for house arrest. Orlando asked him again, "Are you giving me your assurances you will follow the terms and conditions for the next three weeks?"
"Yes."
He asked the youth, yet again: "Are you a man of your word?"
"Yes."
He got to go home.
COVID-19 also prompted some lawyers to act out of character. One public defender decided not to challenge the evidence against a teenager, fearing that asking for a so-called probable cause hearing would require the girl to remain in the lockup until the hearing could be scheduled. That would put her in contact with other detainees, any one of which could be carrying the infection.
"I'm trying my best to minimize everyone's interaction with everyone as much as we can," the public defender said.
Because the girl was not considered a high risk, Judge Ross sent her home.
"There's a lot going on in the world," Ross said, and "the worst thing you can do to make it even more stressful than it is now is violating home detention. So just take a break from everyone, sit home and concentrate on how you can make improvements in your life."
But home detention isn't a safe option for some children.
That same day, Judge Ross heard the case of a youth charged with beating his father. Given his risk assessment, the boy normally would be sent back home _ to his father.
"The dad is very stern," said the youth's probation officer, who added the father "is actually more of the aggressor on some occasions."
Another bad choice for the judge.
Ross looked to the boy's pastor, his probation officer _ and the boy himself _ for a suggestion.
"It's a bad situation in normal circumstances, but (especially) under these circumstances, where we're trapped at home for a long period of time," said the pastor, Steve Champagne. He offered to host the child for a few days until he could return home safely.
Ross asked the father if he would allow the child to stay with Champagne for a few days until the tension eases.
At that point the child chimed in over Zoom that his father's form of punishment "is punching me ... He punched me so hard that he knocked me out."
"If that's the case an investigation needs to be initiated," Ross said, as she and the team began discussing the tricky logistics of conducting an investigation amid a pandemic.
The child couldn't go home. So he'll be sent to an emergency shelter instead.
Parents face unique obstacles. How do you keep a child with a history of running away home during a public health crisis? How do they send their flesh and blood to a detention center where they might catch the coronavirus? What if they catch it themselves?
And some parents decide it isn't worth the risk to themselves. One child was arrested for burglary of a conveyance, petty theft, and stealing someone's ID information. The state made its case for secure detention.
The public defender argued for release, "given the pandemic."
"We've got dad and stepmom on the phone, I'm assuming they're willing and able and wanting to take him home," she said.
Wrong.
"At this point I don't think we're able to bring him home," the father said.
The father and his wife are estranged, and their son lives with his mother. She's employed in an essential industry.
"It is a very difficult situation because she is still working and we have not been able to control Jake over the past and I'm not sure we will be able to in the future," the father said.
The child's mother seconded her estranged husband's point.
Both parents are in their 60s. She worries that Jake will expose her to the virus.
"I understand your situation where the jails are full, but I would be at risk as well right now," she said. "You would be putting me at risk."
The teenager pleaded, "I'm under an ankle monitor. I'm gonna stay at home. I'll start my online school. I have the computer at the house and I'll start my online school. I'll do my online meetings for my Alcoholics Anonymous."
And more.
"They can take all social media away from me so that I'm not able to be in contact with anybody, "he said. " Set the alarm, I won't be able to walk out the house. If I walk out the house both alarms will go off."
Final verdict: The child will stay in the detention center until the end of April.
The state hopes to start hearing these cases in person again.
But it might take a while.
