After the jury deadlocked this week on everything but the charge of lying to the FBI, Rod Blagojevich seemed uncharacteristically short of confidence in his impromptu press conference outside the courthouse. He and his lawyer hit on the theme that twelve people had determined the Government had not shown proof that he was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
\nAu Contraire. Three of the jurors have now come forward to say that only ONE of their number refused to find him guilty of the core charge, attempting to sell President Obama\u2019s vacated Senate seat.
\nBlago\u2019s reaction echoes his behavior as a powerful activist against the rights of Illinois gun owners\u2026back when he had power, that is. Lots of rhetoric, unsupported by the facts and indeed contradicted by the facts, and a stubborn refusal to face reality.
\nThere were apparently other charges among the two dozen that were deadlocked by that same lady on the jury, alone. The foreman of the jury said that on some other charges, multiple jurors \u2013 up to seven \u2013 did not believe the Government had proven its case. Fair enough.
\nThe fact remains that on the most egregious element of Blagojevich\u2019s alleged betrayal of the public trust, the brokering of the Senate seat, eleven of twelve on the jury of his peers were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty.
\nAnd on the charge of lying to the investigators, the whole dozen were convinced, and FOUND him guilty. Yet the defense maintains that the outcome was a victory for them.
\nThe only people who believe that being convicted of a serious Federal felony is a victory are criminals who are guilty of much more, and guilty men\u2019s lawyers. It\u2019s the sort of delusional thinking we\u2019ve come to associate with those who want to deprive law-abiding American gun owners of their civil rights.
\nReaders, jury duty veterans\u2026what\u2019s YOUR take on it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After the jury deadlocked this week on everything but the charge of lying to the FBI, Rod Blagojevich seemed uncharacteristically short of confidence in his impromptu press conference outside the courthouse. He and his lawyer hit on the theme that twelve people had determined the Government had not shown proof that he was guilty beyond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,36,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-blagojevich","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-illinois"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}