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At least 31 California counties home to 80 percent of the state's residents have kept COVID-19 emergency bail schedules to help curb the spread of the virus in jails and surrounding communities during the pandemic, according to data from superior courts.

Emergency meeting of court and branch leaders from around the state will focus on measures to ensure California courts can meet stringent health directives while also providing due process and access to justice.

Delayed by COVID-19 for nearly three months in most parts of the state, jury trials are resuming in counties large and small.

The measures aim to continue essential court services while guarding the health and safety of the public, court employees, attorneys, litigants, judicial officers, law enforcement, and staff and inmates in detention facilities.

The Judicial Council voted to end the COVID-19 emergency bail schedule, as California begins a phased re-opening and courts restore services shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Judicial Council approved a revision to emergency rule 9 regarding the statutes of limitations for filing civil cases during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to clarify that the emergency rule also applies to “statutes of repose”.

The council's latest temporary emergency rule requires attorneys to electronically serve and receive notices and documents in all general civil actions and family and probate proceedings when requested to do so.

Judges now have discretion to backdate modification requests for child, spousal, partner, or family support orders during the state of emergency.

The Judicial Council voted to end two temporary emergency rules governing evictions and judicial foreclosures, to stay in effect through midnight Sept. 1.

"We in the judicial branch will do our best to serve the public in these unprecedented times of a global pandemic and recession," Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye said.

At its May 15 teleconference meeting, the council received reports on potential reductions to judicial branch funding, as well as planning efforts to restore court access and services restricted due to COVID-19 pandemic.

The Judicial Council of California has launched the Pandemic Continuity of Operations Working Group, which will quickly collect best practices and publish a framework to help the state's 58 superior courts restore interrupted services in the wake of the...