District Court of Hamilton County, Kansas

07/02/2025

It has been brought to our attention that some of the jury questionnaire return envelopes do not include our address. Please add our address to the envelope and return it to us. You also have the option to drop off your questionnaire at our office or in the dropbox pictured below. Thank you!

06/18/2025

Please note that Hamilton County District Court will be closed on June 19, 2025, due to Juneteenth and will reopen during regular business hours on Friday June 20, 2025.

05/07/2025

Firstly, I would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who liked and followed our page. Unfortunately, we have encountered technical difficulties and are unable to go live. Despite our best efforts over the past hour, the video refuses to load. I am providing the link below to our YouTube live stream. Once again, thank you to everyone who helped us surpass 100 followers.

The annual Syracuse High School mock jury trial, presented by the senior class as part of their civic education coursework. The case this year is State of Ka...

05/21/2020

Greetings and salutations, dear readers. We return with further updates from that place between Kendall and Coolidge for your perusal.

On May 18, 2020, the Hamilton County Courthouse reopened itself on a limited basis. Unfortunately, this decision does not have a meaningful impact upon the operations of the District Court and the opening of the Courthouse only affects those offices and facilities on the Courthouse’s first floor. The second floor, where the District Court resides, remains closed to the public.

With the Courthouse now open, the District Court is governed by Supreme Court AO 20-PR-48 rather than AO 20-PR-49. At present, the Chief Judge of the 25th Judicial District has determined that the current Hamilton County District Court facilities do not meet the safety requirements mandated by AO 20-PR-48 to allow a phased reopening to the public at present. The District is currently striving to make our facilities compliant so that we can reopen to the public as soon as possible, though at the moment there is not a timetable for such which can confidently be discussed.

The District also continues to formulate and implement its plan for the conducting of remote hearings. These plans are maturing nicely and should be ready for formal announcement within the next week or so. It is Judge Velez’s intent to be ready to conduct as many hearings as possible which are currently set for June remotely via Zoom. However, because of the fact that the District is still finalizing these plans and the uncertain nature of the timetable to reopen the District Court to the public, it is possible that some or all of the hearings currently set for June may need to be continued.

Thank you once again for your continued consideration and patience with the District Court as it makes its way towards reopening. The next update will hopefully come sooner than this one. And will hopefully have some good and definitive news on the anticipated unveiling of the District’s remote hearing infrastructure and policies.

05/04/2020

Administrative and Executive Orders, oh my!

If you’ve been following the goings-on in Topeka, you may have noticed late last week a veritable deluge of orders originating from the Governor and the Supreme Court regarding COVID-19. Hopefully this will help keep things straight:

• Governor’s Executive Order 20-28 (https://bit.ly/2W7awdj) (re)declared a state of emergency and reissued most of the previously issued Executive Orders regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Governor’s Executive Order 20-29 (https://bit.ly/2L00WT0) laid out Phase I of the reopening of society, removing the statewide stay-at-home order and outlining the restrictions in place regarding the resumption of social contact.

• Supreme Court Administrative Order 2020-PR-44 (https://bit.ly/2SEi4SC) reissued AO 2020-PR-36 regarding the suspension of time limitations and deadlines regarding criminal prosecutions in municipal courts.

• Supreme Court Administrative Order 2020-PR-45 (https://bit.ly/2YwvrI2) authorized usage of two-way electronic audio-visual communications (e.g. video-conferencing) for all court proceedings and established the requirements to do so.

• Supreme Court Administrative Order 2020-PR-46 (https://bit.ly/3c7nkWC) suspended normal time limitations and deadlines to bring a criminal defendant to trial in District Court.

• Supreme Court Administrative Order 2020-PR-47 (https://bit.ly/2WsD7s9) suspended the normal time limitations and deadlines applying to the conducting or processing of judicial proceedings in District Courts.

• Supreme Court Administrative Order 2020-PR-48 (https://bit.ly/2W5DFFI) outlined courthouse operations for those courthouses in counties which are not under stay-at-home orders or which are not closed because of a public health emergency.

• Supreme Court Administrative Order 2020-PR-49 (https://bit.ly/3cg6gNS) outlined courthouse operations for those courthouses in counties which remain under stay-at-home orders or which are closed because of a public health emergency.

Currently, Hamilton County has not issued its own stay-at-home order, but the Courthouse does remain closed because of a public health emergency. We are therefore governed by SC AO 20-PR-49, and if you wish to know what the scope of the District Court’s operations currently are, please refer to that and 25th Judicial District AO 20-12.

We are also looking at the best ways to make use of SC 20-PR-45, which we will have an update on as soon as the plans are firmed-up enough to be revealed.

04/20/2020

The District Court of Hamilton County is currently only conducting essential operations for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, pursuant to Supreme Court Administrative Order 20-PR-32 (https://bit.ly/3czSHcc), as well as 25th Judicial District Administrative Orders 20-7 (https://bit.ly/2VHNsjD) and 20-12 (https://bit.ly/2Vo21Kj). The Hamilton County Courthouse, as of May 18, 2020, has reopened to the public. The District Court nonetheless remains closed to the public, as it does not currently comply with the reopening criteria of Supreme Court Administrative Order 20-PR-49.

For practical purposes, this means that almost all hearings have been continued until a date after June 1, 2020; few new hearings are being set before that date; and that while the Courthouse's front doors are open, you are not permitted to enter the second floor where the District Court's facilities are unless you are a party to a matter that is deemed an "essential function" and for which an in-person hearing must occur. If you have questions regarding what this means for you case and are represented by counsel, please contact your attorney. If you have the same questions and are not represented by counsel, please contact the Hamilton County Clerk of the District Court at (620) 384-5159.

Your patience in dealing with the disruption and inconvenience caused by the Court's response to COVID-19 is deeply appreciated. Updates the actions taken by the Court in response to COVID-19 will be made available as they occur.

5/20/20 Update:
Created update regarding opening of HMCO Courthouse and how it (does not) impact the HMCO District Court: https://bit.ly/3bKZFdj. Further updated pinned post to reflect 5/20 updated information and remove dead link to SC AO 20-PR-16.

5/4/20 Update:
Compiled a summary of the EOs and AOs from Topeka on 4/30 and 5/1: https://bit.ly/3fmNlD2. No meaningful change for the HMCO District Court, however, at least for the moment.