Reading Room Document

Amenability of the Vice President's speech writer to jury duty.

In this memo, the OLC concluded that the vice president’s speech writer would be exempted from jury duty as a “public officer” in the executive branch per 28 U.S.C. §1863. The OLC determined that the vice president’s speech writer was a public officer because he was directly appointed by an elected official. The OLC briefly noted the unique circumstances of then-Vice President Ford’s ‘election’ to public office (Ford had been appointed to the vice presidency after Spiro Agnew resigned). Nevertheless, it concluded that the issue was moot because Ford was arguably ‘elected’ and because the vice president position is an elected office. In the alternative, the OLC reasoned that the speech writer might be excluded under several other exceptions, including that his relationship with the vice president might jeopardize jury neutrality.

February 19, 1974