Trump to Report Monday for NYC Jury Duty

New York has a star-studded jury pool, and if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump shows up Monday he will join a long list of celebrities who have made the trip to lower Manhattan to sit with hundreds of others who could be picked to decide trials.

Trump said last week he’s looking forward to reporting for duty on Monday. The real estate mogul has been called previously five times since 2006 but his campaign said he hadn’t received those summonses.

Jury duty in New York has long attracted an interesting cast of characters:

Even though former president Bill Clinton was not made to show up for jury duty in 2003, he was nonetheless seriously considered for an attempted murder case in Manhattan federal court. He was referred to only as Prospective Juror No. 142, but his identity became clear when his answers to various questions were read aloud. Under previous jobs, he listed “President of the United States.”

Prosecutors asked for immediate disqualification, but the defense objected. Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, a Clinton appointee, decided that No. 142 and his Secret Service protection would “undermine our efforts to keep the case focused quietly on the evidence.”

Jury duty for a sitting mayor — Michael Bloomberg — was an event in 2007, with the billionaire spending part of his day signing autographs, being sketched by courtroom artists and getting personal greetings from a state judge and attorneys.

He was considered for an asbestos lawsuit, but an attorney wanted assurances that the mayor would not dominate a potential jury of five other people.

“I would be one voice of six, but I’ve got a strong personality, and you’d have to ask them what they think,” Bloomberg replied.

He was not chosen. But his predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, actually became jury foreman in 1999 while in office. The panel rejected a security guard’s claim that he was scalded in the shower because of his landlord’s negligence.

The plaintiff’s lawyer said afterward that the mayor’s presence was detrimental but Giuliani disagreed.

“They didn’t treat me like the mayor,” he said.

This article appeared in print on page 5 of the August 17th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.