People: Trump joining list of celebrity NYC jurors
New York has a star-studded jury pool and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is due to join a long list of celebrities who have made the trip to lower Manhattan to sit with hundreds of others who could be picked to decide trials.
That list has included directors Woody Allen and Spike Lee, actors Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathleen Turner, comedians Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien, and TV news anchors Tom Brokaw and Barbara Walters.
Here are a few other celebs who have shown up for jury duty in New York:
Bill Clinton Even though the former president was not made to show up for jury duty in 2003, he was nonetheless seriously considered for an attempted murder case in Manhattan federal court. He was referred to only as Prospective Juror No. 142, but his identity became clear when his answers to various questions were read aloud. Under previous jobs, he listed “President of the United States.”
Prosecutors asked for immediate disqualification, but the defense objected. Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, a Clinton appointee, decided that No. 142 and his Secret Service protection would “undermine our efforts to keep the case focused quietly on the evidence.”
Monica Lewinsky The former White House intern who had an affair with Clinton while he was president was questioned in 2002 as a potential juror in a state case involving a personal-injury lawsuit against the city. A clerk said that when Lewinsky was asked if she could be fair, she replied she did not think she could serve. As questioning continued, she became teary-eyed and the attorneys and judge agreed she should be excused.
Caroline Kennedy The lawyer, author and daughter of former President John F. Kennedy was selected to serve on a state court jury in 2013 that acquitted a man accused of dealing crack cocaine.
During jury selection, she didn’t mention whether any member of her family had been a victim of a crime. Asked if she or a family member had close ties to law enforcement, Kennedy said her brother once worked as an assistant district attorney. The late John F. Kennedy Jr. had worked in the Manhattan DA’s office.
Tony Danza The actor best known from the TV sitcoms “Taxi” and “Who’s the Boss” served on a drug case last year. On his way into the courthouse, he told the New York Daily News that he’d been there 30 years earlier, when he was under arrest for fighting in a restaurant.
“I think the last time I was here was in 1984 when I was in a lot of trouble,” he said with a chuckle.
The paper reported that Danza was convicted back then of misdemeanor assault and criminal mischief.
The birthday bunch
Actress Maureen O’Hara is 95. Actor Robert DeNiro is 72. Singer Belinda Carlisle is 57. Actor Sean Penn is 55. Actor David Conrad is 48. Actor-singer Donnie Wahlberg is 46. Actor Brady Corbet (“24”) is 27.