Courts will remain open during winter storm

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Winter weather continues to hit Mid-Missouri and is leading to courts, businesses and schools closing.

Columbia Public Schools announced a snow day for Thursday but courts in both Boone and Cole County will remain open.

Every day courts around the state will run a daily docket where a large number of people attend for several different reasons.

Presiding Judge Jon Beteem says moving an entire docket to a different day can be challenging.

"We don't cancel the dockets but we will accommodate the people that can't show up," Judge Beteem says.

Officials say if bad weather causes someone to miss a scheduled court day it will not affect their case but it will delay the outcome of it.

Judge Beteem said, "We note the days where there are travel advisories we don't ask anybody to risk their lives to get to court like I said if you are a case where you can appear virtually we can probably continue and take care of your case that day."

When winter weather is expected in Mid-Missouri the Cole County court will authorize skeleton staffing ahead of time.

Judge Beteem says, "We will remove or allow clerks to work from home, we have equipment for that, we set-up for that, we practiced all of that during the pandemic. "

One big difference the court will see during winter weather is how much work is done virtually.

"All of our judges have the availability to appear virtually on a docket or to try a case where everyone is remotely and you can't do that with a lot of criminal cases." Judge Beteem said.

Judge Beteem says although there is winter weather courts and cases must go on.

"The reason that we are here is that work goes on, there are still people in jail, there are still cases where we need to do bond reviews and we still need to sign warrants."

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