Chicago court told the US president will not be able to serve on jury as he prepares for Wednesday's state of the union address

Here's an easy excuse for getting out of an inconvenient spot of jury duty: a meeting with the president of the Kurdistan region in Iraq. It may not work for everyone – but it works for Barack Obama.

Late last year a summons for Barack Hussain Obama of 5046 South Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, arrived, instructing him to report for jury service at Cook County's Bridgeview courthouse.

Obama now spends more time at his work address, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC – better known as the White House – and sent word that he was otherwise engaged running the country.

Obama of course has a busy time, with his first State of the Union address on Wednesday, in which he hopes to turn around his sagging political fortunes. But otherwise the week seems pretty clear. Today he was meeting the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. And President Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan regional government was dropping by later in the afternoon.

In many respects Obama would have made an excellent juror, with his degree from Harvard Law School and his years teaching law at the University of Chicago. But the other jurors may have been intimidated by his presence, not to mention his ability to grant a presidential pardon if he did not like the verdict. Yet when Chicago's most famous resident, Oprah Winfrey, was called to serve in 2004, she turned up and helped convict a 27-year-old man on a charge of first-degree murder. Like Obama, Oprah had an empire to run but that did not deter her from earning $17 a day for the three days she spent in court.

Obama is not the first US president to be picked for jury service. In 2005 George Bush was called to serve in Texas, near his ranch in Crawford. But he also skipped the chance to deliver justice. The same month Bush's presidential opponent, John Kerry, was also summoned. Unlike Bush, Kerry reported for duty and was even elected foreman by his jury peers.