Putnam Courts Working To Catchup After COVID’s Court Closures

Putnam County Courts are facing a large backlog in cases following their closure last year.

Circuit Court Clerk Jennifer Wilkerson said the judges, district attorneys and attorneys are working to get through their caseload.

“So you have the volume of cases but then you also have cases who have really been sitting on dockets for a long period of time,” Wilkerson said. “So there’s a lot of sentencing, pleas, and things of that nature having to take place.”

Wilkerson said that with such a large influx, they don’t have the space to accommodate them. With five courtrooms and multiple hearings and sentencings a day in each courtroom, judges have now taken to add more dates to their calendars to address the issues.

Wilkerson said they’re hopeful to catch up within the next year, but that it could take even longer.

“You have all these new cases that are being filed on top of existing cases,” Wilkerson said. “So it could very well be a couple of years or more.”

Wilkerson said they still have a number of jury trials left for the year and have summoned over 1,100 jurors. With 700 jurors currently in paneled, she said they’re doing everything they can to get the cases heard.

Wilkerson said right now they’re seeing an influx of both criminal and civil cases.