Justin Sevier (Florida State University - College of Law) has posted Procedural Justice in COVID-19 Era Civil Trials on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the lives of millions of people worldwide. American courts have not been immune to the hardships created by COVID-19, and legal authorities have been placed in the difficult position of determining how to provide justice to civil litigants while keeping participants in the legal system safe from the coronavirus.
Initially, many courts decided to suspend civil trials until the virus was contained or until adequate mitigation measures became available. As the pandemic dragged on, however, several courts turned to innovative solutions to continue resolving civil disputes. Some courts have opted for "sterilized" in-person trials, in which courts allow for sufficient space to practice social distancing, require face coverings, and include plexiglass barriers in the courtroom, among other innovations. A select few courts have opted for a bolder solution: to hold jury trials entirely over Zoom videoconferencing software.
Adequately understanding the extent to which jurors legitimize these COVID-19-era innovations requires understanding the ways in which they differ from normal civil trials. To that end, this symposium article explores this issue through the lens of construal level theory, a modern psychological theory that examines the effects of distance on people's perceptions of their social surroundings--either by attending court masked, separated from others, or through plexiglass barriers; or by attending court on one's computer miles away from the courthouse.
This Article is ultimately a call for empirical research on public perceptions of the procedural justice provided in COVID-19-era civil trials. Specifically, this Article examines how perceptions of a legal tribunal's procedural justice may be moderated by perceptions of psychological distance. It then suggests several avenues through which researchers can study the feasibility of COVID-19-era procedural innovations as they impact public perceptions of legal legitimacy throughout the pandemic and beyond.
