Come 8 a.m. Monday, you will experience justice in some new ways in Natrona County.

The $26 million Townsend Justice Center can accommodate as many as seven trials at one time, and will feature security unheard of in the 70-year-old Natrona County Courthouse.

Which means you will need to adjust a few things, whether you are a juror, a member of the public or a lawyer requesting documents, a family member visiting a prisoner, or a spectator at a trial.

Gone are the days of entering the courthouse or Hall of Justice and walking directly into a clerk's office or to the two courtrooms -- only one of which met state requirements for a 12-juror trial -- for a hearing. State law requires counties to provide one 12-juror courtroom for each state district judge and staff.

The Townsend's courtrooms mean quicker turnaround for juvenile and adoption litigation to major criminal trials, which means more traffic than seen at the Natrona County Courthouse since its construction in the late 1930s.

On Thursday, Clerk of District Court Gen Tuma gave a tour of the public areas of the courthouse and offered a few suggestions while carpenters finished trim work and fire alarms were tested.

Security

Plan ahead and arrive early for whatever business you need to do, from jury duty to an initial appearance to a records request.

Visitors enter the Townsend Justice Center through a single entrance that faces north toward a patio with a low brick wall parallel to North Center Street.

The Lady of Justice statue -- originally perched on the county's first courthouse and recently in the current courthouse's lobby -- looks down on visitors while they wait in the lobby.

"This is where everyone comes first, so you're not outside freezing your feathers off," Tuma said.

The lobby gives people the opportunity to prepare for the screening area, which poses the biggest change for the public, Natrona County Sheriff Mark Benton said.

"We want to provide to the best of our ability to offer the best degree of security for the building and the people in it while causing them the least distress," Benton said.

Everyone is required to place purses, parcels, briefcases and other items on a conveyor belt that runs through an X-ray machine, he said.

Likewise, everyone is require to walk through a metal detector, Benton said.

Those whose belt buckles, steel shanks in boots or other metal items sound an alarm will be asked to step aside for one of three civilians to pass a metal-detecting wand across their bodies, he said.

The Ewing Kerr Federal Courthouse practices the same security measures, but the Townsend Justice Center will receive far more traffic.

Unlike the federal courthouse, the Townsend security measures will evolve, Benton said.

"It is truly going to be a work in progress for a while," he said.

The three district judges have already issued an order banning all weapons except for security personnel.

The judges probably will ban cell phones for everyone except attorneys, Benton said.

But no decisions have been made about laptop computers, many of which have video and audio recording capabilities, he said.

Public access

After passing security, courthouse visitors have partial access to all floors except the basement with its holding cells for prisoners, and the third floor with the machinery and electrical equipment that help run the building.

The first floor features a large, 100-spectator-capacity district courtroom, Tuma said. District courts handle civil cases, felony criminal trials, and juvenile and probate matters.

The first floor also has a smaller "flex" courtroom available for either state district court or circuit court. Circuit courts handle misdemeanor cases, cases in which the damages or recovery does not exceed about $7,000, and most family violence cases.

All courtrooms have secure access for judges and prisoners, and attached holding cells and jury rooms.

An alcove between the courtrooms has telephones.

The public can access the second, fourth and fifth floors by stairs or two elevators. (Judges will have one elevator, and prisoners will be transported from the basement by separate elevators to courtrooms.)

Besides the security screening, visitors will notice another major change with the clerk of district court office, located in the area of the original lobby of the Townsend Hotel.

They can see the curved marble and brass stairway that led to the second floor, although it now just leads to a wall, Tuma said.

But the view is all.

A glass partition with speakers separates the public from the court clerk's staff and the public, Tuma said. "People will need to go to the windows; it's all locked down."

The public can access documents by several computers in the public area, but only staff has the ability to pull court filings from the shelves, she said.

On the second floor, the public has access to the two 60-person-capacity courtrooms.

The area closed to the public includes the district judges' chambers, holding cells, witness rooms, jury rooms and offices.

The fourth floor houses the offices of the clerk of circuit court, which had been located on the fifth floor of the Hall of Justice at 201 N. David St. This office has had the same kind of security now adopted by the clerk of district court.

The fifth floor houses the three circuit courtrooms, plus the adjoining prisoner holding areas and witness rooms.

The public -- parties in civil and criminal cases, their families, attorneys, media, trial spectators, documents-seekers, and the curious -- will need patience with security and access as the Townsend hotel-turned-courthouse complex begins a new era for justice in Natrona County.

But the ability to schedule trials, resolve juvenile and probate issues, and provide quicker justice is worth it, Benton said. "This should have a major impact on the docket."

Reach Tom Morton at (307) 266-0592, or at tom.morton@trib.com. Read his blog at tribtown.trib.com/TomMorton/blog.