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Has a POTUS ever been called for jury duty?

It's everyone's civic duty after all, right?

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BigDataLouie
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2 Answers2

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Yep, presidents have been called for jury duty before. Of course they never serve on a jury. 'Running a country' and all is a good excuse.

Perhaps slightly more comically is that even SCOTUS gets called for jury duty, but they also have a good excuse.

Trump though shouldn't be at risk of jury duty during his presidency because he just recently served.

David says Reinstate Monica
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    Showing up for jury duty and getting formally excused by the parties or a judge, however, has a lot of symbolic force. I've frequently encountered jurors in jury pools who say they showed up because a governor or SCOTUS judge did too, so they feel its only fair for them to show up. – ohwilleke Mar 02 '17 at 17:54
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    @ohwilleke How about "I showed up for jury duty because i didn't want to get arrested for not showing up to jury duty"? – David says Reinstate Monica Mar 02 '17 at 17:56
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    Surprisingly rarely. Although one jurisdiction in my area (Glendale, Colorado municipal court), does round up and randomly arrest people who were not called to jury off the streets and from their homes to to serve on juries to avoid dismissing cases for speedy trial reasons when an insufficient percentage of those called actually show up a few times every year. – ohwilleke Mar 02 '17 at 18:00
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    In addition to the people having a good excuse, I doubt a judge would want the President on a jury since it would turn an otherwise menial case into a media circus and the security implications would be a huge headache. – IllusiveBrian Mar 02 '17 at 19:54
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    What's the expression? "I'm just here so I don't get fined." – BradC Mar 02 '17 at 21:01
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    What if the POTUS doesn't want to be excused? He'd have to be challenged not to be a good jury by one of the involved parties, but if they don't complain either (the POTUS being an important person after all, don't upset those), it could happen? – Mast Mar 02 '17 at 21:06
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    @Mast In theory it could happen. In practice, no lawyer would ever want him, no judge would ever allow him, no president would ever want to, and the public would go crazy. – David says Reinstate Monica Mar 02 '17 at 21:20
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    @Mast In a federal court, full-time public officers in any branch of any level of government are barred from jury duty, so the President would not be allowed to serve on a federal jury. State court may be different, though. – cpast Mar 03 '17 at 02:27
  • As a lawyer Obama would be pretty safe from being selected even if he weren't the president. – curiousdannii Mar 03 '17 at 10:14
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    @curiousdannii Lawyers get selected all the time. My father is a lawyer and he just recently served on the jury in a traffic case in Maryland. I sat on a jury for a kidnapping/carjacking/murder case about 2 years ago alongside a defense attorney. – Roddy of the Frozen Peas Mar 03 '17 at 16:54
  • @RoddyoftheFrozenPeas In Baltimore, lawyers and police officers and anyone involved in criminal cases are excused. It depends on whether a lawyer is involved in cases like the one being tried or in front of the judge trying the case or knows one of the lawyers or police officers involved in the case. – sabbahillel Mar 03 '17 at 17:43
  • @sabbahillel Not all lawyers work in criminal law; the case I mentioned was actually in Baltimore. It's all irrelevant anyway, I was just pointing out that a blanket statement like "a president can't be selected if s/he is a lawyer" is not accurate. It wasn't intended to start any sort of extended discussion about nuances about eligibility rules in particular jurisdictions. – Roddy of the Frozen Peas Mar 03 '17 at 19:09
  • @RoddyoftheFrozenPeas OK you are correct. Blanket statements would need to be explained in more detail. – sabbahillel Mar 03 '17 at 19:11
  • @Roddy Must be different in the US than In Australia then. My mistake. – curiousdannii Mar 03 '17 at 23:06
  • This answer is mostly link-only, which is usually discouraged because links die all the time. Can you integrate some of the information into your answer? It's basically only saying "yes" right now. – isanae Mar 04 '17 at 03:30
  • @BradC In America if you don't show up to jury duty you can get fined or even imprisoned. You are legally obliged to show as it is your civic duty. – David says Reinstate Monica Mar 07 '17 at 14:30
  • @grovkin This is more of a theoretical legal discussion that realistically will never come close to happening, but I would argue that if the president doesn't not respond to a jury duty summons then that doesn't qualify as in his capacity as president and thus separation doesn't apply. Same reason that if the president shoots someone in the middle of the street then the worst that happens won't be removal from office. – David says Reinstate Monica Feb 19 '18 at 02:12
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    @grovkin You are 100% mistaken. This is why Nixon was pardoned. Otherwise he would have gotten more than kicked out of office. – David says Reinstate Monica Feb 19 '18 at 06:18
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Technically speaking, I don't think a President can serve on a jury while in office. This probably never had to be decided by a court because a President would always be excused.

But the fact that they would even get called should be considered a clerical error. Separation of powers would preclude them from making any judicial decisions (and a jury's job is to decide on facts of a judicial case).

Jury members get paid. Which makes them court employees during the time of their service. But, also importantly, this may have severe implications for judicial independence.

A better question might be whether any Congress member had to serve on a jury and I think that would also be impossible due to separation of powers.

grovkin
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    You are incorrect. Separation of powers does not preclude you from civic duties. As a member of a jury you are not an official of the judicial branch. This is why mayors of small towns can and do serve on Jurys. – David says Reinstate Monica Feb 19 '18 at 06:19
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    The separation of powers argument is in any event irrelevant for the President of the United States in state courts, since the president is not an officer of any branch of state government. – phoog Feb 19 '18 at 15:57
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    @Grovkin yet Obama was called in 2010 by Illinois. He did not claim non-residence. On the contrary, he appears to have retained his status as an Illinois resident, at least for some purposes, while serving in Washington. Also note how presidents and members of congress routinely vote in their "home states" while in office. – phoog Feb 19 '18 at 22:44
  • @grovkin that you don't know any legal justification for their doing so can be attributed to your not knowing voter eligibility law. See, for example, https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/11/where_does_obama_vote_shouldn_t_the_president_vote_in_washington_rather.html: "Fortunately for the president, the Illinois voter-eligibility statute contains an exception for residents who are absent from the state “on business of the United States.”" If such provisions didn't exist, nobody would be able to serve more than one term in congress. – phoog Feb 19 '18 at 23:34
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – phoog Feb 19 '18 at 23:47