For folks living in Marble, being part of Gunnison County is one of life’s little jokes. It is not always important, but every now and then, Marble residents have to face the reality that serving jury duty when called is nearly impossible.
There’s an overblown joke that nobody likes jury duty; imagine having to drive several hours when called for it, regardless of the weather. The distance alone leads most Marblites to beg off if the selection date is held. This factor especially prompts the question: wouldn’t it be more practical to assign jury duty based on the nearby courthouses rather than the county seat?
The Pitkin County and Gunnison County lines hit each other around mile marker 48 on Highway 133, at the northeastern base of McClure Pass. Marble residents are aware that they’re driving a distance to reach any population center. That’s true of many of the towns in the West Elks; the solitude is a central aspect of the appeal. That blessing turns into a curse when it comes to civic duty. Voting is less of an issue, as all counties set dropboxes at select points for more rural residents.
Jury duty is another story. The Gunnison County Courthouse is 86 miles and nearly three hours from Marble by the shortest route, which includes the dirt road over Kebler Pass. Garfield County Courthouse in Glenwood Springs, by comparison, is 40 miles away.
In winter, on occasions when McClure Pass closes for avalanches, summoned potential jurors must reroute through Glenwood Springs and Montrose. Per the Marble town manager, Ron Leach, that 235-mile drive takes five hours each direction. For a drive that long and in case of day-of cancellations, it’s impossible to check the morning of whether the selection is truly occurring that day or not.
For contrast, consider Redstone. Also a small community that values its distance from larger population centers, Redstone sits five miles on the Pitkin side of the county line. Five miles is roughly the same distance Marble is on the Gunnison side. While still a drive, Redstone jurors face a mere one-hour commute to Aspen, a third of what is required of their Marble neighbors in the best of circumstances.
All this before even considering the current predicament with the Blue Mesa Reservoir bridge. When Kebler Pass and the reservoir bridge aren’t options, the fastest way for Marble residents to get to Gunnison is to go over Independence Pass, through Buena Vista and Poncha Springs, and over Monarch Pass for a whopping four and half hours and 200 miles if they don’t encounter traffic. And these are all summer calculations. If the Blue Mesa Reservoir bridge isn’t repaired by winter, it becomes a minimum five-hour drive of 250 miles.
Much of this is hypothetical, of course. The Gunnison County Jury website is updated before potential selections about whether said selection is still occurring (up to the night before). This same website has links to postponement and disqualification forms. The postal summons do also include the Gunnison court phone number to call and check the selection status or to request postponement or disqualification. There is a bureaucratic understanding of the distance and difficulty, and Gunnison has waived summons before due to the distance. What if someone wanted to report for duty, though? Is that distance reasonable?
There are occasional speculative citizen conversations about redrawing counties not for any kind of gerrymandering, but simply to follow sensible geography. If county boundaries aligned with watersheds, it would make courthouses and other county resources easier to access for small rural towns, thanks to roads generally following waterways. In the near term, however, the best solution is requesting disqualification.
Marble residents, if called for jury duty in Glenwood Springs, would you be more likely to show up?
