Being famous is not a recognized exemption from serving as a juror in the United States. Even celebrities and (former) presidents are summoned for jury duty. A-Listers that have reported for duty include supermodel Gigi Hadid who was called to serve on the jury for the high-profile rape case against Harvey Weinstein. Anna Kendrick's even live-tweeted her 2015 jury duty experience. That same year, Brad Pitt eagerly reported to an L.A. courthouse on his 51st birthday ready to serve but was dismissed for being too distracting. The political elite must also participate. After missing five jury summons, Donald Trump was sent a $250 fine before reporting for duty and being dismissed. Former President George W. Bush appeared for duty in Dallas in 2015 but was excluded by the judge since his secret retinue could "undermine our efforts to keep the case focused quietly on the evidence." In a similar vein, former President Barak Obama was summoned to serve on a jury in his hometown of Chicago in 2017. The Chicago native was dismissed with half of the other jurors by a random draw before lunch and was sent a check for $17.20 for his time. While most attorneys would have issues with putting a former president on a jury in their hometown, these former presidents remind us by showing up for jury duty that they have no special privileges when it comes to jury duty and they are just like us. As Justice Felix Frankfurter said, "In a democracy, the highest office is the office of citizen." All these A-Listers displayed their willingness and eagerness to report for duty, whether or not they got to serve.
While most celebrities don't make it to the jury box because of their potential to distract, Oprah Winfrey, one of the most famous people to ever have existed, made it past the jury summons stage and served on a jury that convicted a Chicago man for murder. Oprah not only served but went on to discuss her experience and interviewed her fellow jurors on her talk show. But aside from the distraction of having a celebrity juror sit in the jury box, should celebrity jurors be prevented from serving because of the undue influence they may wield over other jurors? The Oprah Effect: Weighing Celebrity Influence on Juries
A study examined whether a celebrity juror would persuade participants to support their verdict more than a non-celebrity juror and whether celebrity jurors would interfere with participants' abilities to consider case facts independently. This study found that celebrity jurors' opinions influenced participants' decision-making process and that celebrity jurors were more likely to be elected as forepersons. When participants were told that Oprah Winfrey voted for the death penalty, other participant jurors also voted for the death penalty. Oprah's death penalty vote made it harder for participants to be impartial and evaluate case facts properly. Researchers speculated that participants viewed Oprah as a compassionate and generous individual based on her public image. But the participants' ideas about Oprah clashed with her death penalty vote, which may have affected their sentencing decisions and ability to assess the facts of the case. The contradiction between the participants' schema of the celebrity and their sentencing decision may have caused the participants to pay more attention to a celebrities' individual preferences without weighing the facts of the case themselves. This schematic violation can infringe upon a defendant's right to be judged by an impartial l jury and should be studied further. A limitation of the study is that the participants read celebrity jurors' sentencing decisions and opinions which could impact potential jurors differently than serving on a jury with a celebrity juror where they have the opportunity to discuss the case with the celebrity juror.
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