County officials are beginning to focus on Butler County's government building and jail system in response to calls from the governor to take precautionary measures against the spread of novel coronavirus 2019.

Butler County's court system postponed jury selection service through April in response to COVID-19, according to an announcement. The jury announcement was signed by Candace Graff, the district court administrator, and mailed last week to all selected jurors, common pleas judges and county department heads. The administration also decided to cancel high-volume court proceedings such as enforcement court and GAGNON, a kind of probationary hearing.

As of Monday around 2 p.m., there were no reported cases in the county of the virus, according to Butler Memorial Hospital.

“The court will continue to make adjustments to mitigate large group court appearances in addition to ensuring all essential court functions continue,” Graff said in a prepared statement.

All of these developments come as a response to what the head of the World Health Organization called the “defining global health crisis of our time,” noting that testing is the top priority.

With jury selection canceled, Joel Lansing Hills, a Butler-based criminal defense attorney, suggested that Butler County Prison release inmates who are being held pretrial on nonviolent charges.

“I understand they're accused of crimes. But they're presumed innocent. And to have them languish in jails while we're hunkering down and being told by the governor not to gather in large groups, it seems inhumane,” Hills said.

During the past week, Hills began to file for bail reduction requests for his clients, questioning whether the punishment fit the crime if inmates ended up exposed to COVID-19.

“While we're in the middle of this crisis, I think it's what's rational and right,” Hills said. “The lion's share of people in Butler County Prison are there on nonviolent drug charges. I don't think they deserve this possible death sentence. People need to think, if your kid got picked up on a dope charge, would you want them sitting in jail during this?”

On Monday, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts issued a statewide judicial emergency, allowing counties a wide variety of options, including shutting down or restricting court facilities.

The state administration advises that any county that declares an emergency must arrange for the provision of essential judicial services, including arraignments and bail establishment hearings and protection from abuse act proceedings.

The declaration authorizes Judge William Shaffer, the county's acting president judge, to declare a judicial emergency in Butler through April 14. The decision is up to Shaffer under the declaration and is meant to protect the health and safety of all court goers, according to the announcement from the state's court administration.

Shaffer said he would not call on those powers — for now.

“We're going to stay open,” he said. “We partner with the commissioners since obviously we share the same building, so we try and all be on the same page. We pledged to meet every day. We're going to go day by day and, hopefully, things change for the better and not for the worse.”

Under the emergency powers, the Rule of Criminal Procedure 600 within a judicial district is suspended if a judicial district decides to postpone all court proceedings.

Rule 600 is meant to ensure a speedy trial for defendants who are held in county jail. Since a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the rule is meant to ensure a defendant isn't held for too long in jail before a trial or entering a guilty plea.

Administrators at the Butler County Prison are considering the best course of action for the jail's roughly 230 inmates, many of whom are being held pretrial. So far, Warden Joe DeMore said they have canceled all inmate visitations except for essential personnel like a defendant's lawyer. They are also screening incoming inmates for temperatures and general symptoms that might be related to the pandemic, DeMore said. If an incoming inmate has a temperature above 100.4 degrees, then the jail will refuse the intake. It then would be up to the arresting agency to get the person cleared at a hospital before they can be returned to the jail.