Perhaps like the pins and needles sensation that accompanies the return of feeling to a numbed foot, Florida’s courts are feeling the way back to resuming criminal jury trials, with several trials completed in at least three different circuits.

The effort has required vast planning and coordination among judges, lawyers, clerks, and others, and creativity in using local resources. Plus, lots of hand sanitizer.

More circuits have planned to resume a limited number of criminal jury trials in the coming days and weeks and the Office of the State Courts Administrator confirmed that jury trials have occurred in the Seventh, Eighth, and 20th circuits. (At recent Bar Town Hall meetings, chief judges in the Third and 10th circuits said they will shortly begin criminal trials.)