A letter came in the mail on May 28 summoning Arlington resident Thomas Sebastiani for three days of jury duty at the Cascade District Court, but he already had a fool-proof excuse for deflecting it: a death certificate.

But before you prick your ears for news on how to get a magical ticket out of jury duty, there’s a catch: you have to actually be dead, as Mr. Sebastiani has been since October 2005.

As it is, Sebastiani’s story is just one more example of communication disconnect within the state and federal levels of government. But is it? Sebastiani’s wife, Billye Brooks-Sebastiani, already had to call the Department of Licensing when she received a drivers’ license renewal reminder addressed to her deceased husband in September of last year. She never received his voters’ ballot for the November election, and Snohomish County Elections Manager Garth Fell reported that Sebastiani's voter registration was cancelled in 2005, the same year that he died. Logically, Sebastiani should have been safe from jury duty summonses, since the court's jury duty rolls are drawn from random number polls of voter registration, and the turnover time between jury assignments and cases is typically two to three weeks.

Even Bob Terwilliger, the county’s Court Administrator, is confused. Problems like this typically only occur when residents have had name changes or die out-of-state, but Sebastiani had neither, and the death happened almost four years ago.

“It's obviously not non-existent, but the probability of something like this happening is not major, if at all,” he said. “It shouldn't have happened in this case.”

Billye Brooks-Sebastiani was admittedly a bit amused when she first received her husband’s summons (and not at all tempted to take his place, like Thomas Parkin, who was arrested for impersonating his dead mother). But she soon saw something a little more grave in the mix-up, like the state’s ability to manage database information.

“It's totally amazing that, even with modern technology, we can't manage these records," she said. “If they can't keep track of this, how can they keep track of criminals, or monitor sex offenders? It calls their whole credibility into question.”

Unless, of course, Snohomish County called Mr. Sebastiani with the goal of increasing jury diversity by adding zombies to the roll call. In that case, touché.