Joe Henning Tuesday at his home in Huntington. (Photo by Dan Little)
By REBECCA EVERETT
@GazetteRebecca
Daily Hampshire Gazette
NORTHAMPTON — When Joseph Henning of Huntington showed up for jury duty Aug. 24, he was one of the first to be impaneled on the jury that would ultimately convict Adam Liccardi of rape. While waiting in a room at the Hampshire County Courthouse, Henning knew his parking in the James House lot was due to expire at noon, but a court officer told him he could not leave until prospective jurors were dismissed for lunch. When he got to his car at 1:15 p.m., a $15 parking ticket was waiting on his windshield.
He appealed the ticket, believing that the Office of the Parking Clerk would understand that it was not his fault he could not get out to buy more parking time. His appeal was denied, first in writing and then on Sept. 15 in an in-person meeting with Parking Enforcement Administrator Nanci L. Forrestall.
“There’s no mercy, even when you’re serving as a juror,” Henning said this week. He said he did not have enough change in his car to pay past noon, but believed he could get change in the courthouse and return to buy more time.
“It sounds petty, but why punish the jurors?” he said. “I think that stinks.”
Forrestall’s office referred comment on the issue to the mayor’s office. Mayor David J. Narkewicz said that while he understands that it is upsetting to get a parking ticket on top of having jury duty, the city cannot waive its parking rules for jurors. “I feel for the jurors, but we can’t subsidize the state court system,” he said.
Any juror who calls the juror information line is advised to park in lots — including the one at James House — that allow for long-term parking and to expect to be in court until 4 p.m., Narkewicz said.
Henning said that even if jurors park in the recommended lots, they are still at risk of getting a ticket. For instance, jurors are advised to pay for parking until 4 p.m., and the courthouse generally closes at 4:30 p.m. But on two days — the first day of impanelment and the first day of deliberation — jurors were not dismissed until after 5 p.m.
The solution would be to give jurors a parking pass or come up with some other provision to exempt them from parking rules in certain lots, he said.
Henning now has until Oct. 6 to either pay the $15 ticket or appeal it to Hampshire Superior Court at a cost of $275.
Superior Court staff said that while people do come to court and ask to appeal a parking ticket, they almost never do after they are informed of the fee to file a civil complaint. They could only recall a few such complaints ever being filed.
In 2005, Vincent Gillespie of Greenfield filed a civil complaint about a then-$10 parking ticket and ultimately won. Judge Bertha D. Josephson ruled that the city had to revise its ticket appeal process to allow for an in-person hearing, which is now in place.
Gillespie in 2011 lost a separate civil case when the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it was fair to require ticket appeals to go to superior courts because the $275 filing fee discourages frivolous complaints.
Henning said he has not ruled out the appeal, and has considered staging a kind of protest of the policies he believes are unjust to jurors. They were required to spend a week and a half listening to evidence in a rape trial and deliberating on a verdict, but were not given any concessions when it came to parking.
“I said, ‘I’m the kind of person to be vigilant about this,’?” he said of his meeting with Forrestall. “I think this is wrong.”
Henning said that his parking problems started right when he pulled into a spot in the James House lot. The pay-to-park machine in the lot only takes change, and he only had enough coins in his vehicle to last the four hours until noon.
The recording on the juror information line reminds jurors to bring quarters.
He thought he was in luck when he saw a worker emptying the change from the machine, so he asked for change for a dollar, he said. The man told Henning he was not allowed to give change.
Henning said during his hearing Forrestall told him that the best thing to do in that situation is to park in the E.J. Gare Parking Garage behind Thornes Marketplace.
“She told me in the hearing that it was pointed out in the juror information that you should park in covered parking,” he said.
Neither the Hampshire County Courthouse jury information website nor the recording on the jury information line mentions the parking garage. Both recommend parking in lots and the recording mentions the James House lot and says additional parking is available “behind Thornes Market and the Brewery on Armory Street.”
Those lots also have pay-to-park machines. In the parking garage, users pay when they leave. Narkewicz said that is likely why Forrestall mentioned it to Henning.
“It is the one and only municipal parking facility in Northampton where it is impossible to get a ticket,” he said in an email. “If you stay four hours longer than expected or four days you will only pay the cost of the time you parked.”
Narkewicz said his office emailed the court Tuesday to suggest that it may be helpful to include on the jury information website a link to the city’s parking information page.
With the exception of the Chicopee and Greenfield courthouses, most courthouses in area communities do not have free parking, but advise jurors to park in municipal lots, garages or at meters. More rural courthouses such as Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown and Orange District Court offer free parking.
Unemployed jurors can request reimbursements for parking fees, according to the state Office of Jury Commissioner.
Rebecca Everett can be reached at [email protected].
