Ex-President Barack Obama Shows Up In Chicago For Jury Duty
By Don Babwin, Associated Press, Shannon Heffernan
Ex-President Barack Obama Shows Up In Chicago For Jury Duty
By Don Babwin, Associated Press, Shannon HeffernanCHICAGO (AP) — Former President Barack Obama, free of a job that forced him to move to Washington for eight years, showed up to a downtown Chicago courthouse for jury duty on Wednesday morning.
My former colleague happened to be called for jury duty at the same place and same time as Citizen Barack Obama today! pic.twitter.com/u6ub7ESGM2
— Maria Quitéria (@RaceForTheWH) November 8, 2017
The 44th president’s motorcade — considerably shorter than the one he had when he lived in the White House — left his home in the Kenwood neighborhood on the city’s South Side and arrived at the Richard J. Daley Center shortly after 10 a.m.
Obama — wearing a dark sport coat, dress shirt, but without a tie — waved to people who gathered outside after hearing reports that he would be reporting for jury duty.
Basically every lawyer and juror coming out of elevator has the same stunned look and makes same joke— “for me?!” https://t.co/aixEm0ST0M
— Shannon Heffernan (@shannon_h) November 8, 2017
Whether he will be selected to sit on a jury, and presumably be selected jury foreman, was not known. But if he is like other would-be jurors, Obama will have to watch a decades-old video in which a much younger Lester Holt, who was a local news anchor before he became a national news anchor, explains the ins-and-outs of jury duty.
Obama is also in line to receive the $17.20 a day that jurors are paid for performing their civic duty.
Obama is the highest-ranking former public official to be called to jury duty in Chicago, and almost certainly the only one who ever arrived with a Secret Service detail. But he is not the first former president to be called to jury duty.
In 2015, former President George W. Bush answered the jury duty call in Dallas. He was not selected to sit on a jury. And in 2003, former President Bill Clinton reported for jury duty in federal court in New York City. He also was not selected.
Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey waves as she arrives for jury duty at the Cook County Criminal Court Building in Chicago on Monday, Aug. 16, 2004. A jury supervisor said that even if Winfrey is not picked from about 300 prospective jurors, she received a $17 check from the court for her time. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Talk-show host Oprah Winfrey waves as she arrives for jury duty at the Cook County Criminal Court Building in Chicago on Monday, Aug. 16, 2004. A jury supervisor said that even if Winfrey is not picked from about 300 prospective jurors, she received a $17 check from the court for her time. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
Obama also isn’t the first famous Chicagoan to be called to jury duty. In 2004, Oprah Winfrey was on a Chicago jury that convicted a man of murder. A decade later, Lawrence Tureaud, better known as Mr. T, showed up to a suburban Chicago courthouse for jury duty, sporting his usual Mohawk, but without the gold chains for which he is known. But despite the more subdued outfit, Mr. T was not chosen to sit on a jury.