{"id":29972,"date":"2017-11-09T16:13:55","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T11:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=29972"},"modified":"2017-11-09T16:14:43","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T11:14:43","slug":"barack-obama-dismissed-from-jury-duty-at-chicago-courthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=29972","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama dismissed from jury duty at Chicago courthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WASHINGTON Nov 09 (TNS):<\/strong> Former US president Barack Obama answered a jury summons, but was dismissed soon after arriving at a\u00a0Chicago courthouse to perform the civic duty asked of all Americans.<\/p>\n<p>As a prospective juror, Obama\u00a0joined fellow citizens at Cook County\u2019s Daley Center courthouse, all waiting to see if they would be chosen to serve on a trial.<\/p>\n<p>The former leader of the free world was the only juror to arrive by motorcade, however, accompanied by tight security and met with a throng of news media and court staff trying to snap a picture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe gorgeous!\u201d one court clerk exclaimed upon spotting the former president, the Chicago Tribune reported. Potential juror Kelly Bulik told the newspaper she felt like a \u201cpiece of melting butter\u201d as she shook his hand.<\/p>\n<p>Obama thanked everyone for showing up, and was surprised by some who presented him with copies of his books to sign.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThanks everybody for serving on the jury. Or, at least being willing to,\u201d he said to laughter.<\/p>\n<p>The former law professor left by midday along with a number of others who were randomly selected for dismissal, according to the Tribune.<\/p>\n<p>Before heading to court, the former president tweeted in the morning about Tuesday night\u2019s high-profile state and mayoral election results seen as a sweeping repudiation of the politics of his White House successor Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is what happens when the people vote,\u201d Obama wrote. \u201cEvery office in a democracy counts!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obama is not the first US president to show up for service that some Americans either dread or find excuses to avoid. Obama\u2019s predecessor in the White House, George W Bush, responded to a jury summons in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Bush was not selected to serve as a juror, but images of the smiling former president posing with delighted citizens at the courthouse in Dallas, Texas quickly showed up on social media.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago has some experience with high-profile jurors. In 2004, media titan Oprah Winfrey, who at the time produced her talk show out of the midwestern city, was a juror on a three-day murder trial ending in a conviction.<\/p>\n<p>While the Obamas currently live in Washington, the ex-president and first lady Michelle Obama maintain a home in Chicago, the city where he got his political start.<\/p>\n<p>The south side of Chicago is also where the future Obama presidential center will be built, near the former leader\u2019s home.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON Nov 09 (TNS): Former US president Barack Obama answered a jury summons, but was dismissed soon after arriving at a\u00a0Chicago courthouse to perform the civic duty asked of all Americans. As a prospective juror, Obama\u00a0joined fellow citizens at Cook County\u2019s Daley Center courthouse, all waiting to see if they would be chosen to serve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,303],"tags":[304,733],"class_list":["post-29972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-washington","tag-washington","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29973,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29972\/revisions\/29973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}