Henderson County (Nov 5, 2021) - The Opportunity House, which has shown little evidence that it’s offering services to the community, defended itself in court this week against a three-year-old lawsuit that asks a judge to determine whether the agency remains a nonprofit.
Residents who receive jury notices shrink back in horror. Accused felons are warehoused in a jail cell as they await the resumption of jury trials to determine their fate. And the banging of a gavel to bring a proceeding to order has been replaced by the banging of nails and buzzing of saws that have repurposed the courtroom space for socially distanced justice in the pandemic world.
“There’s been quite a bit of destruction and construction done in the courtroom to make sure that we can seat jurors in the courtroom both during jury selection and during a trial where they are six feet apart,” J. Tyler Ray, Henderson County’s clerk of superior court said. “All the courtroom capacities have been significantly reduced since last March. When the jury pool is in the building, it’s split up into morning and afternoon pools. It looks a lot different in the courtroom than it did before March of 2020.”