US citizen and former president George W. Bush was among a group of potential jurors in a Dallas courthouse Wednesday.
“President Bush received his jury summons and reported for service this morning at the George Allen Courts Building in Dallas,” Bush spokesman Freddy Ford told CNN in a statement. “He sat through the jury selection panel for a case in Judge Eric Moye’s court on the 14th civil district but — surprise! — was not picked to serve as a juror. He was there for about three hours and posed for photos with other jury candidates, judges, and court staff.”
Surprised and excited fellow jury duty reportees posed for photos with Bush.
President Bush had jury duty today! #43 pic.twitter.com/S7AOMkNJBu
— Texas GOP (@TexasGOP) August 5, 2015
In the US, 32 million citizens are summoned every year to serve jury duty. However, for various reasons, only around 8 million of those actually report, and only 1.5 million are selected to serve, which adds up to around 27 percent of American adults having at one time served.
A large percentage of those who do not end up actually on the jury panel are people who do not receive their summons — the mail is returned as undeliverable in 4 million of the 32 million annual summonses. Another 3 million Americans fail to appear.
By James Haleavy