Posted: | November 9, 2015 09:14 AM |
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From: | Representative Scott A. Petri |
To: | All House members |
Subject: | Jury Commissioners |
In the near future, I plan to reintroduce legislation that will amend Title 42 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes to correct a discrepancy that exists following the enactment of Act 4 of 2013. Act 4 amended the County Code to permit the abolishment of the office of jury commissioner. Pennsylvania Title 42, however, still assigns certain responsibilities to this office, yet in many counties it no longer exists or will be abolished. Those responsibilities include the duty of compiling the overall jury lists from which juries are later composed for trials. This could potentially serve as a basis for a defendant to claim that his or her civil rights were violated because a jury was formed without strict compliance to statutory law. This bill will correct this potential problem by assigning the jury commissioner’s responsibilities to a county’s president judge where a county has elected to abolish the office of jury commissioner. Please join me in co-sponsoring this bill to amend Title 42 correct these discrepancies. |
Introduced as HB1716