Commissioner Martin Requests Current Jury Commissioners Resign
Commissioner Scott Martin
LANCASTER, PA – At their Dec. 28, 2011 weekly Public Meeting, Commissioner Chairman Scott Martin and Commissioner Craig Lehman voted to abolish the Office of Jury Commissioner. Commissioner Dennis Stuckey was absent for the vote.
“Since the 1980s the County of Lancaster has paid outside entities to maintain records of eligible jurors and to make a random selection from those databases; we have been and remain confident in the capabilities of these entities to do such,” Commissioner Martin said. “As a result, the Office of Jury Commissioner has no real authority or role in Lancaster County Government.
“Until recently, the County of Lancaster was mandated by State law to uphold these positions–including salary and benefits–regardless of their necessity,” Commissioner Martin said. “However, when Gov. Corbett signed Act 108 of 2011 into law, it enabled county governments of the Second Class A or Third through Eighth Classes to adopt a resolution or ordinance abolishing the office of Jury Commissioners; this is what we did at yesterday’s meeting.”
Under the new law, counties may not eliminate the office in a year in which the Office of Jury Commissioner is on the ballot, nor can the Commissioners abolish the office prior to the completion of the current Jury Commissioners’ term of office. Lancaster County’s two Jury Commissioners are serving a term through 2013.
“Although we cannot require that the two current Jury Commissioners step down, in fairness to the taxpayers of Lancaster County, I respectfully request that both Jury Commissioners resign their positions immediately. Doing such will save the taxpayers of Lancaster County over $85,000 over the next two years,” Commissioner Martin said. “I believe it is the appropriate thing to do, especially since computers have been doing the work of jury commissioners for almost 30 years.”
Commissioner Martin also noted that the two Jury Commissioners are very nice people, that this was not personal and thanked them for their service to the public.
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This resolution was passed in 2009 regarding the Jury Commissioners and is in line with the Republican Party’s good government ideology:
RESOLUTION of the REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE of LANCASTER COUNTY ENDORSING the ABOLISHMENT of the OFFICE of JURY COMMISSIONER as ADVOCATED by the LANCASTER COUNTY BOARD of COMMISSIONERS
WHEREAS, Lancaster County Jury Commissioners have capably served the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas and the citizens of Lancaster County for many generations; and
WHEREAS, as long as the office continues, the office of Jury Commissioner must be filled by competent individuals; and
WHEREAS, the office of Jury Commissioner was established in 1867 for the manual compilation of a pool of potential jurors, an integral function essential to our judicial system; and
WHEREAS, today, the courts of the Commonwealth perform this task electronically, thus eliminating the intended duties of this office; and
WHEREAS, every county of the Commonwealth must be particularly prudent in the expenditure of its citizens’ financial resources, and strive continuously, most especially in this time of economic stress, to undertake cost efficiencies; and
WHEREAS, it is imprudent, wasteful, and unacceptable to mandate taxpayers pay for the continuation of an antiquated governmental position that benefits their government very minimally at best; and
WHEREAS, most Boards of County Commissioners of the Commonwealth, including that of Lancaster County, do not have the authority to abolish the office of Jury Commissioner; and
WHEREAS, legislative action by the General Assembly and the Governor, comparable to that accorded Berks County in 2002 (viz., Act 41 of 2002), would permit the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners and other, similar Boards in the Commonwealth to also abolish the office of Jury Commissioner, thereby providing those Boards the opportunity to govern with the utmost of financial responsibility; and
WHEREAS, legislative bills are presently being proposed in both houses of the General Assembly proposing that the governing bodies of counties be granted such an option; and
WHEREAS, the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners has unanimously advocated it be granted the authority to abolish the office of Jury Commissioner; therefore
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican Committee of Lancaster County, assembled this seventeenth day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, endorses the stated position of the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners in seeking the legal authority to have the option of abolishing the office of Jury Commissioner; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Republican Committee of Lancaster County supports very expeditious consideration and adoption of legislative initiatives that would permit every county government in the Commonwealth to exercise this same option for the benefit of its tax-stressed citizens; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Republican Committee of Lancaster County convey this Resolution to the Lancaster County delegation to the General Assembly and to the primary sponsors of applicable legislative proposals in the General Assembly, and also present a copy of the Resolution to the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners.
ADOPTED this seventeenth day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine [...]
