An Edmonton man is searching for answers after a jury summons showed up in his mailbox early last week addressed to his mother, who died 21 years ago.
On Tuesday, Nov. 29, Dino Di Donato, who now lives in his mother’s old house, went to get his mail and was disturbed when he saw a letter addressed to his mother. He opened the letter to find his mother had been summoned for jury duty on Jan. 12, 2017.
“It’s just disturbing. I can’t express it any other way,” Di Donato said. “It’s extremely disturbing to get a piece of mail addressed to her.”
Di Donato said he was concerned the province didn’t know his mother was dead, so immediately tried to contact someone to let them know of the error.
“It said you had five days to deal with the jury summons otherwise it’s a criminal offence.”
Di Donato phoned the number on the jury summons form, which connected him to an automated system. He said he tried to reach an operator but the phone continued to ring with no answer.
He then went online and found the Alberta Justice minister’s email address and sent her an email voicing his concerns and attached a copy of his mother’s death certificate, dated April 13, 1995.
Di Donato waited for a reply but said he heard nothing back so on Thursday, he phoned Alberta Justice.
“I got a recording that said the mailbox was full, which I thought was a bit ridiculous that the mailbox would be full. You couldn’t even leave a message,” he said.
“I called back about five minutes later and I actually got a person. She didn’t identify herself, she just asked me for my name,” he explained, “and she looked it up and she goes, ‘oh yeah we did get an email from you’ and she said that normally it takes two weeks for them to respond by email. I said, ‘that seems a bit ridiculous.'”
Di Donato said he did his due diligence and he expects the province to do the same.
“It makes me feel horrible that they’re not taking this matter serious at all. It’s just another email,” he said. “I would just like to see action and that whatever measures are taken to have these letters sent out, there are safeguards in place that other people don’t get letters for a deceased parent that’s died 21 years ago.”
Alberta’s department of Justice and Solicitor General offered the following statement to Global News.
“A supervisor at the Edmonton Jury Management Office is reaching out to the individual involved today to ensure his concerns are addressed. Alberta draws its jurors from individuals registered in the provincial motor vehicle registry. The database includes individuals with provincial identification cards, driver’s licenses, and handicap parking placards. A deceased individual’s name will still be in the registry if the next of kin has not informed a motor vehicles registry office that all government issued identification for the deceased needs to be cancelled. The registry will need a death certificate or some other confirmation of death. If this has already happened, it’s possible an administrative error may have occurred.”