There is a lot of confusion about the status of jury commissioner positions in Butler County and across the state.

Statewide, confusion is the result of a law passed by the Legislature in 2011 allowing counties to eliminate the positions that was challenged in court due to a technicality. That challenge resulted in the law being overturned by the state Supreme Court, but state lawmakers subsequently passed a new version of the law, which is expected to pass constitutional muster.

In Butler County, the state-created confusion has been magnified by county commissioners’ failure to vote in the fall to eliminate the jury commissioner position, as 42 other counties did. In May, the county commissioners did vote to abolish the position. But by the time of that vote, two candidates here had campaigned and won primary elections for the in-limbo jobs.

The thinking behind the legislation is that jury commissioners are no longer necessary because most counties use a computer system to select a pool of potential jurors.

In Butler County, Larry Thompson, president of the Jury Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, argues for keeping the positions, claiming they are essential to the integrity of the jury pools and thus the justice system.

But most observers disagree with Thompson.

Douglas Hill, of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, says the positions are “purely ceremonial.” Local officials in Butler County’s court system support Hill, saying the job is no longer necessary.

Thompson’s claim that the position is necessary to preserve the integrity of the justice system is not supported by the facts. Computer systems drawing from a database of registered voters select a pool of potential jurors. Then, attorneys representing both sides in a case question potential jurors, eliminating any people they believe might be biased or might not be able to render a fair verdict. That process is what protects the integrity of the justice system.

The jury commissioner position has simply become unnecessary over time. Most other counties in the state recognized this and voted to eliminate the position when the law was initially passed. All or nearly all of those counties have voted, or are expected to vote again, to eliminate the position now that the new version of the law has been passed.

The legal challenge to the law created problems across the state. In most other counties, there were no candidates running in the primary for the position because most people assumed the reinstatement of the positions by the court ruling was temporary. The limbo status of the law has left most counties with no candidates to run in the fall election — in the event the courts support a second legal challenge.

Butler County has essentially the opposite problem. Instead of no candidates, this county has two people who ran campaigns and were elected in the May primary for positions that county officials voted to eliminate.

The vote by the county commissioners to eliminate the position, coming just days after the primary election, was unfortunate timing. But it still is supported by logic — the positions are no longer needed.

Thompson has not made a convincing a case for retaining the jury commissioner position.

There is no easy solution to the problem in Butler County. The candidates ran for positions they must have known could later be eliminated, as they had been in most of the state. They could be allowed to serve out their terms, or be allowed to serve only one year of the 4-year term. Alternatively, they could be told the positions are no longer available.

The main argument for eliminating the position statewide has been to save money, typically about $72,000 for the two part-time positions. But money is not the only reason, it’s the principle — government status quo is not justified when more cost-effective methods are available.

Retaining jobs that are no longer necessary, such as jury commissioners, doesn’t make sense.