Auburn Courthouse Repeat Error Calls 600 For Jury Duty

AUBURN (CBS13) - This is the second time an Auburn courthouse has created this confusion within weeks.

Call it juror déjà vu.

Rosalie Wohlfromm got caught in the glitch this time.

"So I didn't go to work," said Wohlfromm.

She is one of 600 people told to show up at the Auburn courthouse Tuesday morning, all by accident.

Court bailiffs were bracing for the crowd.

"I was told by the bailiffs that they were preparing for six panels of jurors, because there had been another computer glitch," said attorney Elisa Ungerman.

Six hundred people were called for a trial that didn't exist.

"Got there and here's this woman. Uniform, giving out this little thing," said Wohlfromm.

Wohlfromm and the hundreds of others were quickly dismissed with a piece of paper, and no explanation.

"She didn't say anything, because I did ask her, 'is this another glitch?' " said Wohlfromm. "She just didn't say anything."

Twelve hundred people were called to the same courthouse last month in another mistake.

CBS13 came to the county court offices to ask how this could happen, not once, but twice, within a matter of weeks. Nobody in the administration would go on camera, and they wouldn't even answer questions over the phone.

The court executive officer released this statement:

"I personally and on behalf of the court apologize to everyone who was impacted by this mistake. This was a human, clerical error. After the error in May, we instituted additional manual controls that also failed to occur in this instance."

It's a house of justice turning into a bit of a joke for jurors.

"I just think I'd like them to get that fixed," said Wohlfromm.

The only place this glitch seems to be working for is for Courthouse Coffee. With 600 extra people on the block, sales were up 45 percent.

The court's statement also reads "additional steps are being taken to prevent this from happening again."

The statement does not include what those steps are.