In an emergency order spurred by another covid-19 case in the Allegheny County Courthouse, President Judge Kim Berkley Clark halted all in-person criminal hearings until further notice. She said more positive cases among court system employees are likely.

The emergency order came late Friday afternoon, a day after a less restrictive order closed the third and fifth floors of the courthouse in Downtown Pittsburgh. A notice on the Fifth Judicial District’s website had noted that those floors and several other court offices would be shut down temporarily.

“In order to be as safe as possible, the number of in-person appearances must be reduced to a minimum,” Clark wrote, noting that she asked attorneys earlier this month to use videoconferencing whenever possible. “While significant progress has been made, it has not been enough. There still is a lack of consistency in its use by all participants in the system, including the Court.”

The order, which is in effect until further notice, dictates that all hearings take place of Microsoft Teams, an online videoconferencing program.

That includes bail and motion hearings, guilty pleas, sentencing hearings, ARD hearings, probation violation hearings, and review hearings for the following special courts: domestic violence, drug court, DUI court, mental health court, veteran’s court and PRIDE court.

Clark said hearings that can’t be done remotely will be continued, and she pushed for attorneys to file motions and other paperwork online. Microsoft Teams training will be offered for free.

“The continued operation of the Court is essential,” she wrote. “The Court must remain open. In-person proceedings will resume shortly.”

More than a dozen Allegheny County court employees have tested positive for the virus, as well as several lawyers.

The latest is an attorney who appeared in several courts on Thursday, a day before the attorney received his positive results. The attorney was at Magisterial District Court 05-2-10 in Wilkinsburg Thursday morning and 05-2-11 in North Versailles in the afternoon. He was in the Family Law Center, mostly in the protection-from-abuse order area, on Tuesday and Wednesday. The attorney was in Judge Bruce Beemer’s courtroom on Monday.

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