Pilot gets 10 days jury duty for disrespect

By Peter H. Milliken

The pilot says fatigue and stress made him belligerent.

YOUNGSTOWN — An airline pilot has learned the hard way that he can’t fly away from jury duty.

The choice the judge offered — between 10 days in Mahoning County Jail and 10 days of jury duty — was a no-brainer for Kyle Rogers of Canfield. He chose the latter when he appeared in an orange jail uniform at a contempt-of-court hearing.

When Rogers failed to appear for jury duty July 7, Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, administrative judge of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, ordered him arrested by a county deputy sheriff and brought before him for the contempt hearing.

Rogers was arrested at his South Raccoon Road residence Thursday afternoon and appeared Monday morning before Judge Krichbaum.

“What makes you think that you do not have to honor your obligation as a citizen of the United States to appear when you’re summoned by a court for jury duty?” Judge Krichbaum asked Rogers.

“I want to apologize for my behavior. ... It was brought about by fatigue and stress,” Rogers said.

The fatigue was from his having worked seven 14-hour days followed by a 16-hour day, Rogers explained.

The stress stemmed from his divorce and the financial woes associated with it, and from a recent in-flight emergency involving a door-seal blowout and rapid loss of air pressure in a plane’s cabin, Rogers told Judge Krichbaum.

“I was pretty belligerent,” Rogers said of his demeanor when he called from Monterey, Calif, and told Janice A. Mottram, jury bailiff, he wasn’t going to appear for jury duty.

“You were disrespectful to the court. That’s why you’re here to answer for contempt,” the judge said.

“If I take time off, I could lose my job,” Rogers said, noting that the unidentified airline he works for recently terminated 225 employees, including 70 pilots.

“You can’t lose your job by taking time off for jury duty, or your airline is going to pay thousands of times what it would have taken them to employ you,” the judge said.

“I don’t even want to be put on the radar by calling off work,” Rogers replied.

Judge Krichbaum told Rogers he would likely have been excused from jury duty or his jury service would have been delayed if he “had acted like a gentleman” in his conversation with Mottram.

“You’ve acted in a way that has frustrated the administration of justice,” Judge Krichbaum said. “I will not excuse you from jury duty because of an excuse after the fact,” the judge added.

“I want him to serve 10 full days of jury duty,” Judge Krichbaum told Mottram, adding that Rogers’ time in jail before the hearing wouldn’t count toward that obligation.

Rogers said he served as a grand juror several years ago.