photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The new Division 1 courtroom at Douglas County's Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

The multimillion-dollar, 158,000-square-foot addition to Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is coming to life as court offices have steadily migrated from the older part of the building in recent weeks.

People who have courtroom business will notice quite a few changes as they step into the bigger, brighter rooms in what’s now known as the “tower” south of, but still connected to, the older JLEC: increased security, better technology, ample hallway seating, higher ceilings, natural lighting and more comfort for jurors.

The air of newness is everywhere, including the smell of fresh carpet and paint, but one feature is a throwback to county courtrooms of yore: wooden pews in the gallery as opposed to the upholstered, cushioned chairs of the old JLEC, which was built in the 1970s.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The new Division 1 courtroom gallery at Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The old Division 1 courtroom at Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The old Division 1 courtroom at Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

The pews — or benches as they’re called in a secular building — might not be as comfortable if one is observing a weeklong trial, but “they seat more people,” said Jay Zimmerschied, Douglas County’s capital projects coordinator.

The benches are also good, Chief Judge Mark Simpson said, “because you don’t have to worry about uniform seat size and whether that works for everybody.”

Also he noted, the old-school benches “aren’t going to break” or go “wonky” like some chairs in the older building did.

By far the most important difference in the new building, Simpson emphasized, is the enhanced security. In the old building inmates were escorted through the main hallway and up the aisle of the courtroom to the defendant’s table, putting them in very close contact with the public and essentially parading them in handcuffs and ankle chains. In the new building the inmates are escorted by deputies directly through a private passage to the defendant’s table from a side door in the courtroom.

“Obviously that’s a great enhancement,” Simpson said, not just for security but for “your everyday user’s comfort in being in the courthouse.”

The building also has private, secure rooms where attorneys can meet with their clients.

The judges’ office areas are likewise more secure. People who were used to strolling right up to a judge’s administrative assistant’s desk now have to ring a doorbell and state their business over a speaker to gain admittance to the office area.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The new Division 5 courtroom in Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The old Division 1 courtroom at Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center.

Aside from being more secure, the courtrooms are also noticeably more roomy with higher ceilings and greater spaces between their different elements — judge’s bench, jury box, attorney tables and the gallery seating.

All six courtrooms in the new building have an extra counsel table to accommodate cases where there are three parties instead of the usual two — for example, in a criminal trial that has multiple co-defendants. In the old courtroom, multiple defendants and attorneys would crowd around a single table.

In Simpson’s courtroom, Division 5, there are four counsel tables because the civil cases that he regularly handles often have three or four parties.

“In my old courtroom, they had to sit just in the gallery or in the jury box,” Simpson said, “so that change is “very important.”

Each courtroom also has multiple screens for video hearings and evidence presentation, as well as a sound vestibule — two doors followed by a small space and another two doors — to keep hallway noise from being heard in the courtroom. In the old building, it was not uncommon to hear people talking in the hallways as hearings were going on in a courtroom.

Simpson said he thought the new courtrooms would be a definite improvement “as far as everybody being able to see and hear.”

The new courtroom setups should also be more witness friendly, Zimmerschied said. People in the witness box will be able to draw on a small computer screen that is then projected onto a larger screen. In the old building they were obliged to stand and use physical pointers, often with their backs to the jury, judge or spectators, when answering questions about evidence like maps and photos.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The witness boxes in the new courtrooms at Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center are larger and feature a computer monitor.

As for the new jury accommodations, anyone who has served on a Douglas County jury will likely appreciate the higher-backed cushioned chairs in the new courtrooms’ roomier jury boxes and the enhancements in the larger deliberation rooms, which include multiple screens for viewing evidence, a white board, a sink and, importantly, a toilet — make that two toilets — not directly, and awkwardly, adjacent to the deliberation room.

Jurors are also able to come and go directly into the courtroom without having to walk through public areas as in the old building — a concern for judges because jurors could potentially hear comments from people in the gallery and hallways as they filed in and out of the courtroom multiple times a day.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A new jury room is pictured at Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.

The new jury rooms are not directly next to the courtrooms, which will presumably do away with bailiffs having to play loud white noise in the courtroom to prevent anyone from hearing conversations among deliberating jurors. In one case last year, jurors listening repeatedly to recorded fatal gunfire could clearly be discerned in the gallery despite a white noise machine running.

A seemingly small but important change has occurred with the clocks in the new courtroom, which Zimmerschied are tied to a system that prevents them from lagging. In the old building, judges, when calling a 15-minute recess, usually instructed people that they were going by the time on their cellphones, not the time on the wall clocks, which were frequently wrong.

The new building contains six courtrooms, and currently nine judges are sharing those, Zimmerschied said. Three courtrooms will still be located in the old building, which will be remodeled and updated over the better part of the coming year.

The old-building renovations will centralize on the main floor the services that the general public most often uses the courthouse for, such as business with the clerk of the District Court.

Another security feature is that people will enter the building through the same west-facing doors that they do now, though that area — the lobby with the metal detector — will also be remodeled. The new building has emergency exits as required by law, but it will not have a public entrance.

Aside from the obvious changes, Zimmerschied pointed out that the new building has a “light-harvesting” feature designed to save electricity. The light fixtures automatically turn off in the spacious hallways if sensors detect that enough sunlight is coming in through the large windows.

Additionally, the roof of the building has a 120-kilowatt solar array that is expected to offset about one-quarter of the new building’s annual electricity use. The county’s Sustainability Office said that estimate was based on current energy use and would be refined as additional operating data became available.

The new building opened earlier this month after about a year and a half of construction. The budget for it and the remodel of the older building was approximately $59.5 million.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

From the south, the addition at the Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center towers over the original JLEC, pictured Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The recently opened “tower” on the south side of Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Douglas County’s Judicial and Law Enforcement Center with the new addition, to the right, is pictured Monday, Aug. 17, 2026.