OMAHA- One Douglas County judge did not require anyone to wear a mask in his courtroom. District Judge Peter Bataillon even asks for inmates appearing remotely to remove their masks which frustrates corrections officials. Another judge, Greg Schatz felt ill one day and got tested. One test was negative and one was positive. He decided to then show up at the courthouse within a day of the positive test. He was asked to go home. Juvenile court judges have also been having problems with testing positive for the virus.

Close to 10 staff members of the County Court have tested positive and a handful of employees at the Douglas County Attorney's Office have also tested positive.

A group of judges and attorneys is requesting that the Nebraska Supreme Court should scale back to partial shutdown mode as it did in May. Federal courts in Nebraska have stopped jury trials through Dec. 1st and are asking judges and litigants to seek alternative ways to conduct hearings. The major worry is that if everything is scaled back, the already backed up case load will continue to just get worse. Some judges are more strict, same as attorneys, but others do not care about the virus so the courthouse remains a very ambiguous place in terms of masks and social distancing rules.

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