Judge denies jury commissioners’ case
Commonwealth Court Judge P. Kevin Brobson has denied the Pennsylvania State Association of Jury Commissioners’ attempt to stop county commissioners from eliminating the position of jury commissioner.
The ruling Friday denying injunctive relief wasn’t a surprise to jury commissioners, who are trying to preserve their elected offices.
“While disappointing, Judge Brobson’s decision was not totally unexpected,” said Larry Thompson, former Butler County jury commissioner and current president of the Pennsylvania State Association of Jury Commissioners, in a statement released Monday morning.
He noted that Brobson wrote the majority opinion in July 2012 upholding the elimination of the position of jury commissioner, a decision that the state Supreme Court later overturned.
Gov. Tom Corbett earlier this year signed into law a second act of the Legislature to allow counties to eliminate the jury commissioners’ offices.
Republican Washington County Jury Commissioner Richard Zimmerman and Democratic Jury Commissioner Judith Fisher, whose jobs are on the line, are appellants in the current court case. For the second time in a little more than a year, the Washington County commissioners voted in May to eliminate the jury-related elected office when Zimmerman’s and Fisher’s terms expire at the end of this year.
“Statutes enjoy a strong presumption of constitutionality,” Brobson wrote in a five-page order, adding there is no indication that “counties that choose to eliminate the elected post of jury commissioner will be inferior to, less reliable than, or less transparent than counties that choose to maintain the elected post of jury commissioner.”
Brobson, who wrote the opinion that deemed the initial law constitutional, set a briefing schedule that extends to July 10, and either a panel of Commonwealth Court judges or the court as a whole will rule on the case.
Sam Stretton, the Chester County attorney representing the jury commissioners, said Monday, “Unfortunately, you can’t go directly to the (state) Supreme Court. You’ve got to go through the system.”
The state Supreme Court upheld the jury commissioners’ challenge to the 2011 law that allowed counties to abolish their office, but decided the matter on technical rather than constitutional grounds.