No-show juror opts for duty over jail

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By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Ten days in jail or two weeks of jury duty.

The choice was a no-brainer for Ernest Brown, 51, of Plazaview Court, who appeared in an orange jail jumpsuit Tuesday before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum, presiding judge of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. After the judge found him in contempt of court, Brown chose to appear Monday for duty as a trial juror.

Judge Krichbaum had issued a warrant for Brown's arrest after Brown failed to appear May 3 for duty as a grand juror. Mahoning County sheriff's deputies discovered Judge Krichbaum's bench warrant while Brown was serving jail time last weekend on an unrelated resisting arrest charge, for which he'll also be jailed next weekend.

Brown told the judge and Jury Commissioner Robert Jackson that someone he was unable to identify had called him and told him he didn't have to report May 3.

"The phone call came. Other than that, I would appear. I would have come myself," Brown told the judge.

"Well, you keep saying a phone call. I can guarantee you nobody from our court called you and told you not to appear," the judge said. "So I don't know if Casper the Friendly Ghost called you, or Bambi, or, you know, somebody from outer space, or what. But that, to me, is a bunch of baloney," the judge added.

No call

"No court employee would have called him and told him not to come. He should have been here," Jackson said.

The grand jury, consisting of nine regular members and five alternates, meets in secret each Thursday at the county courthouse, hears prosecutors and witnesses and issues criminal charges, known as indictments. If it decides the evidence in a case is insufficient for an indictment, it declines to indict, issuing what is called a no-bill.

Jackson said that another man, a 50-year-old Youngstown resident, also failed to show up for grand jury duty May 3. Jackson said he was able to reach him by telephone that morning, and the man appeared for service that day before a warrant could be issued for his arrest. Judge Krichbaum gave him the same jail or jury duty options, and he, too, chose jury duty. "He said he just forgot to come," Jackson said.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007