President George W. Bush Called For Jury Duty

Leading the free world during wartime and reporting for jury duty are both important public service responsibilities. While most would agree that serving as president of the United States is more pressing than serving as foreman of a jury, McLennan County officials are waiting for Crawford resident George W. Bush, potential juror number 286, to respond to a summons to report Monday for jury duty. "It is not uncommon that people don't respond for jury duty," said 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother, to whose court the president has been summoned. "It is unique having the president in this situation, so I have never faced this issue before and I am not sure what is going to happen. I am assuming at some point that we will hear something from somebody on his behalf." White House spokesman Allen Abney said the commander-in-chief was not aware of the situation: "The White House has not received the summons yet." He declined to elaborate on how the President would handle the jury notice when it finally did arrive from Bush's adopted home county. Strother said one of Bush's daughters, Barbara, received a jury summons for his court a month ago. Someone called to reschedule her jury service because the caller reported that she will be out of the country for the next six months, the judge said. "The president actually appearing for jury duty, I think, would create all sorts of security issues for the Secret Service, for the sheriff's department, for the courthouse, so I anticipate that we will hear some type of response to the jury summons," Strother said. McLennan County District Clerk Karen Matkin said her office mailed a jury summons to Bush at 43 Prairie Chapel Ranch Road in mid-November. "They may still be looking at his mail to see if it has Anthrax on it," Matkin said. "He may have not even received it or know anything about it." Bush's name, address and voter registration number appear on computer printouts of the jury pool that went out to judges this week. While Strother is scheduled to empanel potential jurors on Monday, those who show for jury duty could be assigned to a number of courts beginning at the justice of the peace level. So what if the president turns out to be one of the 70 percent of those 600 prospective jurors who are summoned weekly but simply fail to report and do not invoke an exemption or disqualification from jury service? "I don't think I'll be sending the sheriff out to bring the president in," said Strother, a Republican who has a grandson serving in the Army in Iraq. "It seems to me that the president has plenty of things to occupy his attention. Jury duty is a very important civic function, but running the country, I think, especially in wartime, takes priority over jury service." The last time Bush's jury duty surfaced in news media accounts sparked controversy involving several questions on his juror questionnaire that were left blank, including a question about previous arrests. Bush was governor of Texas at the time and running for president. He managed to get excused from jury service, saying that, as governor, he might be asked to pardon the person on whose case he sat as juror. It later was revealed that Bush had been arrested for DWI in Maine in 1976, and the Democratic Travis County attorney at the time charged in several media outlets that he thought Bush "used his position as governor" to avoid having to answer potentially embarrassing questions about his past. There are no such probing questions on the basic McLennan County juror questionnaire.