AURORA | Jury trials have been mostly suspended through the end of the month in two local courts, the Aurora Municipal Court and Arapahoe County’s 18th Judicial District, due to surging cases of COVID-19 infections.
Aurora officials said Monday afternoon all of its jury trials scheduled between Jan. 4 and 27 are postponed in order to prevent further viral spread. All Aurora Municipal Court trials to a judge remain unchanged, according to a city news release.
“Our chief judge has ordered all jury trials suspended in our jurisdiction and the court is again moving to remote operations as much as possible because of high COVID case counts,” judicial district spokesperson Vikki Migoya said in a statement Monday.
Chief Judge Michelle Amico said skyrocketing positivity rates released by the Tri-County health Department and the number of infections warrant all courts reverting to reduced in-person events.
“The decision to suspend jury trials is not one undertaken lightly,” Amico said in the order.
Health officials report positivity rates for Arapahoe County at 18.1% and 16.9% for Douglas County, according to Tri-County metrics.
“These statistics are higher than those seen even prior to the availability of vaccinations and are extremely concerning in light of the large numbers of people summoned to appear for jury trials on any given week,” Amico said in her order. Amico “was advised by the Tri-County Health Department that the one-week cumulative incidence rate over the past week has increased at the highest rate compared to any previous COVID-19 surges for both Arapahoe and Douglas Counties.”
All jury trials are suspended at least until Jan. 28, according to the order.
The rescheduling process for slated trials was not immediately clear, nor was the number of trials affected immediately available.
One Aurora trial now suspended involved a lurid case against a man accused of more than a dozen felony charges in connection with the poisoning death and rape of a 16-year-old Lakewood girl in August of 2020.
A grand jury in the 18th Judicial District issued a 13-count indictment against Jorge Che-Quiab, including felony charges of first-degree murder, distribution of a controlled substance to a minor and sexual assault on a child, according to court documents.
The trial was scheduled to begin Jan. 7.
Investigators with Aurora police said Che-Quiab held a party with several teenage girls at his apartment in the city’s Heather Ridge neighborhood the evening of Aug. 6 and into the early morning hours of Aug. 7, according to the indictment.
After initially denying his direct involvement in the death of one of the 16-year-old partygoers, he eventually admitted to police that he sold the teen multiple pills containing the powerful opiate fentanyl under the guise the capsules contained the far less potent narcotic Oxycodone. He also provided the group with additional alcohol and cocaine.
Che-Quiab told Aurora detectives that a 16-year-old girl began to lose consciousness and vomited after she ingested the crushed up fentanyl pills, though he did not address her deteriorating condition until the morning.
“He had said that he should have taken her to the ER ‘because she was limp’ but he didn’t and instead went to sleep,” according to the indictment. One 14-year-old who was at Che-Quiab’s apartment that night told a forensics investigator that she lost consciousness after drinking about half a bottle of hard liquor.
“She described waking up with her underwear off, her pants were on backward, and noticing that the money she had kept in her bra was not there,” the indictment reads.
The girl who died was also assaulted at some point during the gathering, police said.