Or the opposite: vote the other way because they feel they have to oppose him personally.
I feel it is the President’s responsibility — Democrat or Republican, nothing personal against any candidate — to turn up when he is called, disruption or no disruption. It is his duty as much as it is that of any other U.S. citizen, though he may claim hardship (to the extent that anybody in that jury pool is permitted). Then the attorneys may disqualify him during jury selection if they perceive a potential problem; that’s what jury selection is for.
Seriously, Bush, and any other sitting president, should avoid jury duty. Just think of the politics. What if it were a drug case, an assault, or some other, “serious” crime? Even if Bush felt personal doubts as to someone’s guilt, he would be under a lot of pressure not to appear, “soft on crime,” or whatever. All I know is that if I were a defendany, I wouldn’t want a president, senator, DA, or anyone above a representative to the state assembly sitting in that jury box.
Yeah, but that’s for jury selection to decide. During the voir dire phase, either of the attorneys can reject a President or a Senator from their case if they think he’d unduly influence it. I think either attorney would consider it pretty much a crap shoot: will he stick to the party line in the face of the evidence? or overcompensate? or what?
Party politics aside, there’s still civil cases. A President or Senator’s individual vote would matter less when the decision needn’t be unanimous.
Since any half intelligent defense attorney will remove Bush, what’s the posint of wasting his or anyone else’s time to sit around for a day, be rejected from any jury he might become a part of, and go home?
If you applied that logic to anybody whose presence on a jury is questionable, or to anybody who felt they were “wasting their time” because the defense attorney would object to them, who’d be left in the jury pool? A President should jump through the same hoops as the rest of us. He votes, he obeys the law, he has the same rights and duties as another citizen, and if he wants out of jury duty, let his chief of staff write a letter like the rest of us do, and if he doesn’t, he does his duty.
I don’t see it as a big deal. Those Secret Service guys are gonna get paid whether they’re guarding him in the deliberation room or bowling downstairs at the White House.
I maintain this to be true no matter who is President, so to me it isn’t about Bush particularly. If it were I’d make some snarky comment about how he can’t do jury duty because he’s working for a political campaign, and then later he’d claim he was on jury duty, providing his dental records and pay stub as proof of attendance.