Dear Court Stakeholders, Currently, we are starting to experience a decline in current COVID cases in our community; however, we still have high rates of infection in our community and are doing all we can to keep court users as safe as possible. After review of our current COVID statistics, we have decided to extend the jury trial suspension until...

Since March of 2020, Cowlitz County has been challenged in an unprecedented way as the COVID-19 pandemic has raced across our community. Fear, concern, and disruption has touched us all.The Courts have been no exception to this struggle as we grapple with the constitutional mandate of providing access to the courts and at the same time making sure ...

Sometime Thursday (7/15) afternoon, the Court lost access to our electronic court files due to a Statewide Network problem. Today we learned that the lines are in the process of being repaired, however we do not at this time have an ETA for operability. We will ONLY be conducting criminal and juvenile first appearances, involuntary treatment hearin...

 On June 30, 2021, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee made a decision to lift many of the public health mitigation strategies as the State of Washington moves closer to being fully re-opened. Cowlitz County's most recent two-week COVID-19 case incidence rate is 174 cases/100,000 population.51 percent of Cowlitz County residents 16 years...

 In light of the Governor's and the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) new masking guidelines, the Superior Court will be reviewing the impacts this may have on Court Operations. In addition, this review will include Cowlitz County Public Health officials. Until such time as this review is complete and any potential changes in masking requirem...

The BJA Court Recovery Task Force is currently gathering information about COVID-19 accommodations and any impacts on court proceedings and jury trials. The following surveys are open: Defendant Survey - Juror Survey - Unrepresented Litigant Survey Thank you for your participation