A former Philadelphia correctional officer was sentenced Tuesday to 42 months in federal prison for repeatedly pepper-spraying inmates and falsifying records about the incidents, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf said Tuesday.
Christopher Knight, 48, of Philadelphia, pleaded guilty in March to five counts of depriving individuals of their civil rights under color of law and two counts of falsifying records, Metcalf said.
U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond also sentenced Knight to one year of supervised release after he serves his prison term.
While a sergeant at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, Knight pepper-sprayed five subdued victims, prosecutors said.
Knight admitted that he sprayed his first victim in January 2023 while the inmate was lying face down on the ground with his hands behind his back, prosecutors said. Knight also struck the inmate during and after the inmate was being handcuffed.
Two days later, Knight sprayed two more inmates in separate incidents.
He sprayed a fourth inmate in March 2023 while the inmate was writing on a piece of paper and not posing a threat, prosecutors said. Knight continued to spray the inmate while he was lying on the ground and in pain.
Later that month, Knight attacked a fifth inmate, spraying the victim while he was lying on the ground face down, prosecutors said.
Knight falsified multiple use-of-force reports and knowingly omitted key details about his own actions, prosecutors said.
“Correctional officers have significant authority over the inmates in their charge and it’s their duty to wield that power responsibly,” Metcalf said in a statement.
“If they fail to meet this standard, and violate prisoners’ civil rights, as Christopher Knight did, they will be prosecuted and held accountable.”
A woman was killed when she tried to enter a neighbor’s apartment and was shot through the door by a woman inside the unit early Tuesday in North Philadelphia, police said.
Around 3:10 a.m., the woman, described only as in her 50s or 60s, was trying to enter a key code to an apartment in a complex on the 1500 block of West Girard Avenue when she was shot at least one time in the chest, said Chief Inspector Scott Small.
The shot was fired through a door that did not have a peep hole or other way to see outside, Small said.
Police had been called to the scene initially for a report of a break-in, Small said. An officer arriving to the apartment complex heard at least one gunshot and found the victim unresponsive in the hallway.
Police transported the victim to Temple University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 3:30 a.m., Small said.
The alleged shooter, described as 56 years old, remained at the scene and was taken for questioning by homicide detectives, Small said.
“She did cooperate with police,” Small said, adding that a gun inside her apartment was taken as evidence.
A security guard told police he saw the woman trying to enter a code for the door and questioned her, then proceeded with his duties elsewhere, Small said.
It was not immediately known if the two women knew each other or had any type of prior interaction, Small said.
The victim’s unit was across the hallway from where she was shot, Small said.
Masked thieves stole half a pallet of Black Angus beef ribs from a tractor-trailer overnight in the Food Distribution Center area of South Philadelphia, police said.
The heist occurred around 1 a.m. Tuesday when four men approached a 2026 Freightliner on the 3300 block of South Third Street and cut the hinges from the rear door of the unattended trailer, police said.
The thieves then loaded the beef ribs into the rear of a dark-colored Ford F-150 and fled south on Third Street in the Ford, which was accompanied by an unknown make and model of Jeep, police said.
No arrests were reported.
In recent years, large cargo thefts have increased in frequency around the Philadelphia region.
Reddy pleaded guilty to cargo thefts in 2023 that had a total estimated value of more than $1.5 million.
He admitted to participating in heists that made off with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of frozen crab legs and more than $360,000 worth of Samsung TVs.
He also admitted to his involvement in a widely reported theft of more than $230,000 in dimes.
Philadelphia police are investigating an overnight meat heist after responding to a call outside Ritter Foods on South 3rd Street. Officers arrived around 1 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 22, to find the rear doors of a meat-hauling tractor-trailer wide open. This incident follows a pattern of similar cargo thefts reported across Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs over the past few years.
“Come here, in my car, sexy girl,” Horsch told the girl, according to an arrest report.
When police found Horsch circling the neighborhood that March night, officers recovered a pair of high-powered binoculars, a digital camera, a telephoto lens, an eye patch, and a condom from inside his Jeep, the prosecutor on the case said.
Horsch was convicted of two misdemeanor counts of luring a child into a motor vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor at a trial in Municipal Court in 2010. He was sentenced to 2½ to 5 years in prison, and would have been required to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, said Jill Fertel, the prosecutor who handled the case.
But Horsch insisted he did nothing wrong, and requested a new trial in Common Pleas Court. Another prosecutor took over the matter.
The victim and her mother became too afraid to testify in court again, according to two people familiar with the matter. The case fell apart and prosecutors dropped the charges. The original conviction was vacated, and in 2015, Horsch successfully petitioned a Common Pleas Court judge to expunge the case.
Fertel, in an interview Tuesday, said Horsch — and that outcome — had “haunted her for the last 16 years.”
Horsch was known to prowl Kensington to recruit women in addiction to appear in his violent pornographic works in exchange for drugs, cash, and a place to stay at his home. But the details of the expunged conviction, which have not been previously reported, indicate Horsch may have also sought underage girls — and suggest that law enforcement was alerted to his troubling behavior nearly two decades ago.
(Top from left) Gabrielle Amarando, Nicole Fusaro, Maribel Fresses, Amy McHale, and Blair Tonzelli. Nicole Fusaro, Gabrielle Amarando, and Maribel Fresses are presumed dead. Blair Tonzelli and Amy McHale are still missing, but last seen at Horsch’s home.Obtained by The Inquirer
Now, the court records in the case — the sole known sex crime Horsch is believed to have been charged with — are at risk of being destroyed.
The records are on file at the Criminal Justice Center, but when The Inquirer sought to review them on Monday, a clerk denied that request.
Because the case had been expunged, the clerk said, the records should have been destroyed years ago. The filings could not be reviewed, he said, and would ultimately be destroyed in accordance with state law.
The Inquirer sent a letter Monday night to administrative judges in Philadelphia’s First Judicial District, asking that the records be preserved in the interest of the public, and that they be unsealed because of the ongoing investigation into Horsch’s connection to missing women.
“Horsch is dead, and this case has extraordinary public interest and news value,” the newspaper wrote. “The filing could hold pieces of information that are irreplaceable and important to the public and the criminal investigation.”
Fertel — who left the district attorney’s office in 2018 — said there are likely essential records of the case that remain in the court file, including notes of testimony, psychology examinations, and letters from Horsch’s defense lawyer submitted as part of his sentencing hearing.
She said the sex offenses triggered a sexually violent predator assessment of Horsch, and recalled that the psychologist was “horrified” by Horsch’s pornography and feared he could be violent.
“This is the only sexual offense he was ever convicted of, that I know of,” Fertel said in an interview Tuesday. “His conduct and his films and video were part of the sentencing. What he was doing [in Kensington] was part of the sentencing. That record is important to have, if we’re to prevent this from happening again.”
Police said they have so far recovered footage on hard drives inside Horsch’s home that appears to show five women dead — including a video of Horsch filming himself while strangling a woman to death with a zip tie. Two other women, including Horsch’s ex-wife, were last seen at the home but remain missing.
Luring a child
Around 7 p.m. on March 20, 2009, the 9-year-old was walking on Ontario Street when Horsch, in a green Jeep, slowed next to her.
“Yo, come here,” Horsch said, before getting out of his car to approach her and calling her “sexy,” according to the arrest report.
The girl ran home and told her mother an old man in a green Jeep had asked her to get into his car. The mother ran outside and chased after the Jeep, which circled the block and drove off, the report said. They called police, who responded and found Horsch in his car near the 3200 block of Kensington Avenue, the report said.
The girl identified Horsch as the man who approached her, the document said.
Fertel said that during the trial, the victim cried on the stand, at times prompting the judge to leave the bench to comfort her as she testified before Horsch, who was standing just feet away.
Horsch was released on bail.
While Horsch was facing those charges in Philadelphia, in July 2009, police responded to his home in Chalfont — where he lived before moving to Olney in 2013 — after a 21-year-old woman called to report a break-in. When officers arrived, they found 455 marijuana plants and two shotguns spread among five partitioned rooms in the basement, according to the Bucks County Courier Times.
Officers also recovered bondage gear, photographs of bleeding women, and a homemade movie labeled with the word “rape,” the newspaper reported.
Court records show that the woman who called police later told investigators she struggled with a heroin addiction and had met Horsch while doing sex work in Kensington. (That woman died of an overdose in January 2016 when she relapsed, her mother said in an interview this week.)
When Horsch returned home that night in July to find police raiding the property, he ran down his tree-lined suburban street, according to the news report.
He was later arrested and pleaded guilty in federal court to manufacturing drugs and illegal gun possession, and was sentenced to 54 months in prison, plus five years’ probation.
Ligature marks on the arms of an unidentified woman in Raymond Horsch’s 2003 two-volume photobook “Eroto: To The Prurient Interest.”Obtained by The Inquirer
Fertel said that, as she prosecuted Horsch in Philadelphia, she learned details of the Bucks County drug raid — including that officers had found disturbing pornography, guns, and explosive materials at his suburban home. That became part of her case, she said, and led her to ask that Horsch be sentenced to the maximum penalty of five to 10 years in prison.
Common Pleas Court Judge Roger Gordon — who presided over the case — sentenced Horsch to 2½ to 5 years.
But then Horsch appealed, and the case collapsed after the child and her mother became too scared to testify against him again.
Fertel said the materials found in Horsch’s home, and the psychologist’s fears of his potential threats to the community, have been seared in her memory ever since.
“He was able to treat women in this fashion for decades and no one has stepped up to protect them. No one was able to stop him,” Fertel said this week. “Everybody knew about it.”
A ‘fabricated thing’
Horsch, who died in May 2025, boasted about his criminal career as a drug manufacturer and document forger. He also spoke openly about how he recruited drug-addicted women in Kensington to appear in his violent pornographic photos and films that featured drug use, overdoses, and staged hangings, drownings, and killings.
But Horsch vehemently denied ever trying to lure a child into his car. He spoke about it years later, in a 2013 interview with the Rialto Report podcast, and said the 9-year-old girl had lied.
“It’s just a totally weird, fabricated thing,” he said. “All you have to do is go to the state sex offender list and you won’t find my name there.”
In his 2003 movie Slaves, Horsch played a semiautobiographical character who, in one scene, described approaching a young girl in a mall. The girl’s mother, Horsch’s character said, then yelled, “Get away from my daughter!”
“The place froze, literally froze. Time stood still. Every eye was on me, from every direction, hundreds of eyes,” Horsch said in the movie. “And I realized in an instant that, to every single person there, I was a child molester.”
Raymond “R.C.” Horsch in character for film role, 2014.S. E. Stokowski / Wikimedia
As Philadelphia police sort through more than one million photos and videos on the hard drives recovered from Horsch’s home on West Chew Avenue in Olney, they have encountered what they believe was staged violence as part of his art — and also photos and a video of what they now believe were real missing women, dead inside Horsch’s home.
So far, police have identified five women in the footage who they now believe are dead: Maribel Fresses, Gabrielle Amarando, Nicole Fusaro, a 25-year-old woman who has not been identified at the request of her family, and another woman investigators are still working to identify.
Two other women who were last seen at Horsch’s Olney home — Blair Tonzelli and Amy McHale, his ex-wife — remain missing.
Police have so far reviewed only about 30% of the materials on the hard drives.
Fertel said she hopes revelations about the 2009 case will draw more attention to the exploitation of women in Kensington.
“No one was getting arrested for what Raymond Horsch was doing,” she said. “This is an opportunity for people to recognize that this is wrong and that we can’t let it happen again. We can’t let this happen to more people.”
For Blake Fleischer, an early morning jog in Center City last month began like any other.
But it ended in terror, she said as she recalled running into traffic near City Hall, seeking help as a man wearing a Chucky-style horror mask followed close behind.
“I was extremely terrified,” Fleischer, 40, testified Wednesday in Philadelphia Municipal Court.
Fleischer, who entered the courtroom limping and using a crutch, tearfully recounted the pain of tearing her hamstring as she fled the man in the mask, who she feared was armed when he asked if she was “ready to die.”
“I thought he was going to attack me,” Fleischer said.
Hughes, 22, was arrested by U.S. marshals in Las Vegas two weeks after the incident. He sat across the courtroom wearing a blue prison jumpsuit and did not speak during the hearing, in which his defense attorney disagreed with many of the prosecution’s findings.
Municipal Court Judge Karen Simmons held Hughes for trial on charges of aggravated assault, possessing an instrument of a crime, terroristic threats, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and harassment. Simmons dismissed charges of disorderly conduct by engaging in fighting, as well as flight to avoid apprehension.
The hearing marked the first time that details about Hughes were heard in court after videos of the masked man’s antics went viral across local and national media outlets and social media feeds.
Prosecutors said Tuesday that surveillance footage recovered from cameras throughout the city had tracked Hughes’ travels, capturing him taking a SEPTA bus from his apartment building near North 23rd and West Venango Streets to Center City after 2 a.m. Aug. 12.
They said Hughes donned the horror mask and began harassing pedestrians in the Suburban Station concourse. He ignored a SEPTA transit officer’s request to remove the mask, they said, briefly flashing his face before putting it back on and leaving the area.
He encountered Fleischer around 5:30 a.m. as she jogged near the north side of City Hall, she testified to prosecutors.
The masked man began to chase her, she said, eventually cutting her off as the two got within several feet of each other.
In an image provided by the Philadelphia Police Department, a man dressed in dark clothing and wearing a mask styled after the character Chucky in “Child’s Play,” the 1988 horror film, chases a jogger in Philadelphia on Aug. 12, 2026. On Thursday, Aug. 20, the police identified a suspect, Zymire Hughes, 22, and said there was an arrest warrant for him. (Philadelphia Police Department via The New York Times) — NO SALES; FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. —PHILADELPHIA POLICE DEPARTMENT
Fleischer said she found herself caught between the facade of City Hall and the man, who held a phone in his left hand while his right hand was concealed behind his back, and she fled.
It was not until the next day — when she awoke in “extreme pain” and had trouble walking — that she went to the hospital for her hamstring injury, she said.
Prosecutors also called on detectives from the Central Police Division to verify surveillance footage of Hughes’ activity. That included a clip in which it appears Hughes is filming himself and gesturing toward his phone before leaving his apartment to head to Center City.
A SEPTA transit officer later testified that he was able to help detectives identify Hughes because he had interacted with him in 2023 and 2024 while on duty. Detectives added that widely circulated images of Hughes yielded a phone tip that aided their investigation.
Lauren Zitsch, Hughes’ public defender, told Simmons she took issue with many of the prosecutors’ assertions, particularly the aggravated assault charge.
“You have to show some form of malice” for that crime to stand, she said, noting that the confrontation between Fleischer and Hughes was not captured on video.
But Simmons agreed with prosecutors, who argued that by frightening the woman enough for her to flee, Hughes would have understood the “legal and likely consequence” of his actions.
Hughes is expected to appear in court for a formal arraignment in early October.
He had not posted the required 10% of his $100,000 bail and remained in custody at the Philadelphia Detention Center.
Police on Monday said a 32-year-old man is wanted in connection with an armed robbery in Center City in which he allegedly was seen on surveillance video menacing the victim with an AR-15-style rifle.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Shakur Nichols, who police said was one of two masked men recorded on video robbing a man at gunpoint on the 1200 block of Sansom Street shortly after 2:20 a.m. Aug. 28. The victim was not injured.
Police were still trying to identify the second assailant in the video, which was posted by police on YouTube. The second man was armed with a handgun.
Anyone with information on where to find or Nichols or who knows the identity of the second suspect can contact police through 911, by calling Central Detectives at 215-686-3093 or -3094, or by submitting an anonymous tip at 215-686-TIPS (8477).
The two suspects robbed their victim after exiting a dark gray Nissan Altima, police said. They took the victim’s jewelry and watch and returned to the Altima, which was last seen heading north on 13th Street.
Both men were wearing black face masks and were dressed in all black, police said.
Police said Nichols may have been involved in other gunpoint robberies in Center City, NBC10 reported.
On Aug. 23 around 3 a.m., three men were outside talking on the 1500 block of Locust Street when three assailants stepped out of a gray Hyundai sedan and demanded the men’s belongings, police said last month.
Two men complied, but a third resisted and was struck in the face with a handgun, police said.
The robbers tool cell phones, watches, car keys, wallets, driver’s licenses, and cash, police said.
Surveillance video showed one of the victims on his knees on the sidewalk as two of the robbers pointed guns — including what appeared to be an assault rifle — at his head, police said.
A total of four men, including a getaway driver in the Hyundai, were involved in that robbery, police said.
The Hyundai had been stolen from Cheltenham Township and was located shortly after the robbery, police said.
Olivia Ponce left her native Mexico for South Philly in 2001, with a young daughter and no extended family; she strongly felt the lack of a support system.
Putting her own health and personal growth on the back burner to give her child a better life, she worked unceasingly in the restaurant industry for more than a decade. A phone number on a light pole offering English classes changed her life.
The digits belonged to the Garces Foundation, created in 2012 by Ecuadorian American chef Jose Garces and Cuban dentist Beatriz Garcesafter the death of a friend who had avoided seeking medical care out of fear of deportation.
Since then, the organization has helped Philadelphians from 26 countries in 12 languages, providing access to English classes, free healthcare, and support as they adapt to their new home, regardless of insurance or immigration status.
Now, to honor its communal sentiment, the foundation has changed its name from Garces Foundation to Comunidad Garces, beginning Tuesday.
As the organization approaches its quinceañera, the new name is just one change. The agency is expanding its free community health days from Philly to Kennett Square, where more than 28% of the population is foreign-born.
For Beatriz Garces, the new name responds to the way people have already come to see the organization: as a community.
“We felt like, given everything the community is going through at this moment, it was even more important to evolve the name to something that really feels welcoming to all immigrants,” she said.
Although the word comunidad is Spanish for community, BeatrizGarces said, the sentiment and their doors are open to people from all walks of life.
For years, Comunidad Garces has been holding Community Health Days about every other monthin Philly to make medical and dental care free and accessible for people who otherwise would not have it.
Since 2021, the foundation has treated about 5,000 people through medical assistance and the dental program, Beatriz Garces said.
Colon and prostate cancer screenings are now available, as well as mammograms through Penn Medicine’s mobile mammography program.
Now, these services will expand to Kennett Square in partnership with Laurel Dental of West Grove.
“It’s the first time we expanded beyond Philadelphia,” Jose Garces said. The first Kennett Square community health day was held Saturday.
“Just on our first day, we discovered five abnormalities in women through our mammogram screening and were able to pass them on to Penn Medicine to continue their evaluation, so day one already making an impact.”
In the last two years, Comunidad Garces has been expanding to adapt to the needs of a growing immigrant community living through challenging times,Beatriz Garces said.
Since 2025, the foundation has also offered digital literacy classes, even providing computers so folks can enroll in the program.
Ponce herself learned English, got her GED certificate, discovered and treated her prediabetes, and found a support system through the organization.
“Immigration always leaves pain in us, but there is something about the power and resistance we find through this community,” Ponce said. At the South Philadelphia-headquartered foundation, “it feels like you are loved, like there is this family vibe.”
Most recently, Ponce was hired as a case manager at the foundation. She now helps community members find housing, employment, and schools and manage their healthcare visits.
The expansion to Kennett Square is, in part, a way to make sure immigrants have access to what they need to build their new lives in the United States, Beatriz Garces said.
As the name change unfolds, Jose Garces hopes the community feels more included and welcome.
“Our name is changing, but the world remains the same,” he said. “Comunidad means community, and that means our door is open to everybody.”
With the astronomical summer about to call it a season, the atmosphere is executing an equinoctial flip to mark the arrival of fall with impacts that could last several days.
With an unusually early nor’easter due to form off the Atlantic coast this week, strong onshore winds in combination with the approaching full moon could result in coastal flooding and significant beach erosion at the Shore in what is likely to be the coolest week since early May.
The National Weather Service office in Mount Holly has issued a flood advisory for the Shore areas for minor flooding late Tuesday afternoon, and a watch for the potential of moderate flooding late Wednesday afternoon into the evening.
In addition, it said, “Moderate tidal flooding could continue through at least Friday evening’s high tide or perhaps longer.”
An advisory for minor flooding along the Delaware River in Philly likely will be added Wednesday into Thursday, said weather service meteorologist Eric Hoeflich.
Potent winds from the northeast could persist through the weekend from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to the Jersey Shore, said Brian Hurley, senior branch forecaster with the federal Weather Prediction Center, in College Park, Md.
When winds and rains may arrive in the Philly region
The nor’easter likely won’t develop until Wednesday, said Hurley, but rain and strong onshore winds aren’t going to wait for the party to start.
Showers are likely Tuesday throughout the region, with winds from the northeast gusting to 45 mph at the Shore, starting Tuesday and continuing into late Sunday night. They are likely to generate beach-eating storm waves. Inland, gusts in the range of 35 mph are forecast for the immediate Philly region, lasting about as long.
It should be dry in South Philly Tuesday night when the Phillies host the Milwaukee Brewers, but it literally will feel like October, with temperatures around 60 degrees at game time. Readings the rest of the week aren’t expected to get out of the 60s, several degrees below normal.
Rain is possible Friday, but how much falls later in the week and during the weekend will depend on how intense the coastal storm becomes and precisely how it tracks.
If you’ve lived around here for a while, that may sound familiar.
“It’s not different from what we talk about in the winter when we try to determine where the snow” is going to fall, said Dan Pydynowski, forecasting supervisor at AccuWeather Inc.
What is all but certain is that those beach-eroding and flood-inciting onshore winds are going to have staying power.
What’s going on up there?
An area of strong fair-weather high pressure, over heavier air, over southeastern Canada is forecast to hold its ground for the next several days. Said Pydynowski, this is “a very strong high for this time of year.”
As the storm intensifies to the south, it also will be stirring up onshore gusts across the region. Winds blow counterclockwise around storm centers, and areas to the northwest of the center experience northeast winds. That’s why they are called “nor’easters.”
Between the two systems, the region is in for a major wind-fest.
Regardless of whether the system becomes a significant rainmaker, said Hurley, “I think we’re going to have coastal flooding erosion issues from the Outer Banks all the way up through the Delmarva and the Jersey Shore for several days in a row.”
In addition to the winds, the areas along I-95 will experience so-called cold-air damming, the result of chilly northeast winds being dammed in by the Appalachian Mountains to the west.
“It’s a very weird time of year to get it,” Pydynowski said.
Philadelphia International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport were still experiencing some delays and cancellations Tuesday after an air traffic control equipment issue had grounded all incoming flights the day prior.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 90 delays and 30 cancellations in place at Philadelphia’s airport, out of more than 700 scheduled flights, said PHL spokesperson Heather Redfern.
“We remind all passengers with plans to fly today to check with their airlines for the most up-to-date flight information,” Redfern said.
Newark airport has experienced 137 delays and 61 cancellations as of Tuesday afternoon, according to FlightAware data.
The Federal Aviation Administration ordered the ground stoppage Monday for all flights coming into Philadelphia after the region’s air traffic control center began experiencing issues with radio frequencies. The ground stop was lifted at about 5 p.m. Monday.
Benjamin Franklin once said there were two certainties in life: death and taxes. Then, the Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968 codified a third: getting summoned to jury duty.
For senior folks, age could be the qualifying factor to excuse them, leaving a reader to ask Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for questions about the city: Is there an age limit on serving for jury duty in Pennsylvania?
As long as you are an adult citizen, residing in Pennsylvania, and have a beating heart, frankly, the answer is no.
Anyone with an able body and mind who can read, write, and speak English and has never been convicted of a felony or crime punishable by more than a year in prison is can participate in jury duty well into their sunset years.
That said, in Pennsylvania state courts, people 75 years and older can request an exemption from fulfilling jury duty to not have to show up, under state law.
The process, however, isn’t as easy as just choosing not to appear.
Ages for excusal from jury duty
In federal courts, summoned jurors can often be excused as early as their 70th birthday, said Corey McCrea, a courts public affairs specialist.
The precise age, however, depends on the district court a person is summoned to; some may have higher or lower age requirements, McCrea said.
Septuagenarians and older citizens can request to be excused from jury duty, but can still choose to fulfill their jury service if they want to, McCrea said.
State courts also have varying ages for exemptions.
Across the river, in New Jersey, residents must be 75, like in Pennsylvania. They have to prove their date of birth to the jury management office.
But in Mississippi, people 65 years old and older can be excused, and only need to file an online form.
Folks in the state of Washington, on the other hand, need to reach 80 years old before qualifying for an age-related excuse. Even then, they need to prove they can’t serve due to health reasons through an attestation form.
Requesting an age-related excusal for jury duty in Pennsylvania
Older Pennsylvanians who are summoned for jury in state court may request to be excused, with the specific procedure varying by county.
Those summoned in federal court — the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for residents in Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Lehigh, Montgomery, Northampton, and Philadelphia Counties — must send an email to ejuror@paed.uscourts.gov within five days of getting the summons to submit their excusal request.
Change on the way?
Seven decades might soon become the rule for all Pennsylvanians, including those summoned in state court.
A new bill in the Pennsylvania General Assembly proposes to lower the jury duty age exemption for all Pennsylvanians to 70.
“When you see people that are 75 years old having trouble just walking into there, to me that’s a bring it down, bring it down to 70,” said Nancy Guenst, the Montgomery County Democrat sponsoring the bill.
