Posted on 08/17/2010 2:45:08 PM PDT by STARWISE
Former governor Rod Blagojevich was found guilty on only one of 24 counts against him. The jury appears hung on the others.
The guilty verdict was on Count 24: providing false statements to officers. After the reading, the jury was thanked and asked to return to the jury room.
*snip*
Before the verdict was read, Judge Zagel said that there may not be verdicts in all 24 counts with which Blagojevich is charged -- and that any counts dealing with forfeiture will be dealt with on Wednesday morning.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
I'm going to watch NBC 5 and TIVO CBS 2 so I will definently let you know. Can someone watch ABC 7? I can only TIVO two channels.
“Following his dispute with the trial judge, Blagojevich’s lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., walked over to the former governor and shook his hand in a way that suggested to reporters he was done representing him.
Adam then walked out of Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, leaving it in doubt whether he will return tomorrow to deliver the closing argument for the former governor.
Asked by reporters if he would be back for the closings, Adam responded, “I don’t know yet.”
Adam announced to U.S. District Judge James Zagel that he wouldn’t follow the judge’s order barring him from arguing that the government didn’t call some key witnesses to point the finger at the former governor. Adam wants to be able to tell the jury that they weren’t called because they would have been helpful to Blagojevich.
Zagel threatened to hold him in contempt of court if he proceeded, and Adam said he would take that risk.”
Interesting comment to the above:
###
“The comment by Zagel that the closing was looking like a “show” is outrageous. If you look at his biography, he is and has always been nothing but an appointed tool of the state and feds. He has apparently has little comprehension of due process rights of private citizens who are persecuted by the federal government.
Throughout the trial, he has attempted to provoke defense counsel and has consistently and, I assert as a litigator, improperly sustained repeated objections made by the children who supposedly represent us at the feds table.
Most recently, he chastised Sam Adam, Jr, for suggesting that he would mention that the feds did not call any of the main alleged participants in the conspiracy. In my opinion, he was confused.
The feds do not have any right to refer to the failure of Blago to testify, since he has Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, but defense counsel can argue that the failure to call those who would have allegedly incriminated Blago creates an inference that they would not have supported the “storyline” of the overzealous immature US attorneys. This trial reminds me of the Julius Hoffman/Chicago Seven fiasco.”
“The skirmish happened on the same day that prosecutors took several hours to highlight evidence in their case, and a lawyer for Robert Blagojevich worked to convince the panel that his client was nothing but a fund-raiser trying to help out his brother.
Adam argued he should be able to tell jurors that the government mentioned 35 people in its case — including Tony Rezko and Stuart Levine — but never called them as witnesses.
“You cannot draw an evidentiary inference from the fact a witness was not called by the other side when you had an equal right to call them,” Zagel told Adam.
Adam’s father walked over to his son and whispered something and then the younger Adam dug in.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/2537328,CST-NWS-blago27.article
Hi maggief!
“Juror Erik Sarnello, 21, of Itasca, Ill., told ABC News that a female holdout kept the jury deadlocked at 11-1 on three key counts related to the Senate seat — conspiracy to commit extortion, attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit bribery.”
...
“Though Sarnello cited a single holdout on the Senate seat charges, jury foreman James Matsumoto, 66, told ABC News affiliate WLS in Chicago there was no single holdout across the board, the votes varied from count to count and jurors were “respectful” toward each other. He added that he voted guilty on all charges against Blagojevich and his brother, Robert Blagojevich, who escaped conviction.”
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/rod-blagojevich-trial-guilty-24-counts-jury-deadlocks/story?id=11411037
Yep, I would not talk to an FBI agent at a social function.
Greetings, MM!
I think I know two things only: LOL.
Blago faces prison time - up to 5 years for each of two guilty findings under count #24.
The retrial will cost Blago a lot of money for his defense team of lawyers.
Am I on the right thread? LOL.
The big question is, where did they find an 11-person pool to come within an nth of putting him away? Oh, let me think... I know! The Daley Machine stacked the jury with Obama supporters, but one was a double agent. :’)
He’s got one count of guilty .. #24.
The IL taxpayers will be paying his legal
fees ... as he’s broke and in debt.
And the American taxpayers are paying for
the US Govt retrial, just as we paid for
this joke of a trial.
Makes ya wanna go out behind the house and
scream, doesn’t it ?
I think the Claypool thing you might want to discuss with Billyboy and Impy. I don’t have a strong enough feel for the race to give you the best informed opinion here (heh, probably one of those times when the red herring argument does apply to a degree... you gotta be local to be tuned in). The one thing I might add is that the regular Dem need only get a plurality while the anti-Combine Indy and Republican split the opposition vote (hence, Berrios wins with, say, 40%, while the others split the remaining 60%).
Oh and we still have Dorthy Brown!
Grab the popcorn or pretzels .. sit back and
watch the show of the father and son defense
team spitfires, Sam Adam Jr. and Sr., after the
verdict, layin’ it on Fitzie. Scroll down page
to the 3 videos.
LOL.....
Jackson Jr’s statement, paraphrased:
“Unfortunately, the embarrassment and pain
to our state will not come to a close today.”
ROFL !! Jessie’s sweating. Why Fitzie ignored
his financial offering to Blago this time is
stupefying!!!
Dollars to donuts one of the Blago brothers will
be calling him in the retrial.
Yeah, I freepmailed DJ on the situation but I can see why it would be difficult to analyze a countywide election in another state if you're not familar with the candidates.
The situtation is probably closer to the 2006 Conn. Senate race between Lamont (D), Lieberman (I), and Schlessinger (R) than it is the Mass. GOP governor's race between Patrick (D), Baker (RINO), and Cahill (I).
Basically, like the Conn. race, the Republican candidate is clearly the most conservative of the three and SHOULD have a decent chance with two liberals splitting the RAT vote, but will likely fade in the background (hovering around 10% in the polls), with the "Independent" liberal getting GOP support because they don't want the hated moonbat to win. And like Conn., it's extremely rare for Republicans to win countywide in Cook due to the overwhemingly RAT majority.
As Lieberman tied himself to Gore but later fell out of favor with him, so can be said of Claypool's background. He might have ticked off the combine, but remember he got his start as an Axelrod & Obama guy and carried the water for them. Claypool's too honest and exposed corruption and wouldn't go along with the disgusting Stroger patronage-fest county budget and tax hikes, but Claypool is still an idealogical liberal who supports "gay pride" iniatives, handouts to illegals, free health care for the "working poor", etc., etc. And like Lieberman, I believe even though Claypool changed his party affliation to "Independent", he still caucuses with the RATs on the county board (of course it wouldn't do much if the 5 Republicans on the county board had a sixth person caucusing with them, they'd still be vastly outnumbered).
In my opinion, an anti-combine liberal progressive is still a liberal progressive. He is NO conservative, the only issue he's with us on is stopping tax increases (as Lieberman is only with us on the WOT and nothing else) While Claypool is to admired for refusing to endorse the socialist combiner RAT for county board in 2006 (and pissing off Daley, Obama, and the rest of the combiners in the process), it must also be noted he wouldn't endorse Republican Tony Pericia in that election. Claypool still wants socialism as the end goal, he just doesn't want it to get bogged down in corruption and he's ashamed of the RAT combine members helping enrich themselves instead of all the poor minorities/gays/women/other touch-feely liberal groups.
I wouldn't have voted for Lieberman and I'm not inclined to support Claypool. Sharon Eckersall is well qualified and conservative and she has my support for now. In the event the numbers in November are something like Claypool-45% Berrios-43%, Eckersall-11%, Other-1%, we may need to reevaluate that. The big difference between Lamont and Berrios is that Berrios is not only a liberal douchebag, but also an ultra-corruption criminal slime who has goons in place to protect him and can wreak havok on this county. That's the ONLY reason I'd ever consider supporting Claypool, as a last ditch effort to stop Berrios.
One of the more amusing aspects of the Cook County Assessor’s race is that Joe Berrios overlooked buying the domain name www.joeberrios.com, so Claypool bought the rights and turned the page into an anti-Berrios site exposing just how crooked the guy is. I love it when liberals eat their own.
OTOH having him convicted of perjury and a waiting sentence would sure put another bird in the bush....Three in the bush is better than one on the lamb. Now who could Revko, Blank-O and Jess-O all have some information that Fitz would be interested in? Hmmmm? Dumbo?
“But the defense will also get to call
Rezko, Emanuel, Jarrett, SEIU Tom
Balanoff, maybe -0 and other IL/Chicago
thug/union elements, etc. “
I don’t understand. If they can call them next time, why didn’t they call them first go round?
Now lets see who could Rezko, Emanuel, Jarrett, SEIU Tom
all have information that Fitz could use against? Hmmm?
Ibama? Daley? My guess is .....”I”
Blago was prevented from having his attorney, a stenographer or his own recording device in his interviews with the FBI, as is typical with the ATF also. Blago claims his comments were taken out of context. The FBI/US Atty refuse to release the tapes of the entire conversation in which they played only edited snippets to the jury.
The speculation is that the parts of the tapes not played seriously implicate Rahm Emmanuel (and maybe others).
There is also speculation that Rahm was pissed that Blago would not appoint Rahm’s/Obama’s favored Valerie Jarrett and ordered the immediate arrest and prosecution for that reason.
Patrick Fitzgerald was selected by conservative anti-corruption icon Peter Fitzgerald and has been aggressive in going after IL’s bipartisan corruption. Karl Rove supported that IL corruption as it was led by his college buddy. That support of IL corruption was a major factor in going after Rove that the non-IL voices overlook.
Rahm is just as much a part of the bipartisan corruption as Rove. The bipartisan combine wanted Obama to fire the Bush appointed corruption fighting US Atty Fitzgerald.
It is very possible that Rahm made a deal: Prosecute Blago who pissed me off and we won’t fire you as US Atty.
Remember, this all happened within 1 month of Obama’s election and prior to actually becoming president.
I smell jury tampering. I am sure the lone holdout’s every answer during jury selection will be scrutinized.
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