Blago = GuiltyFollow

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20074769-504083.html

While the result of the retrial is not particularly surprising, it is notable because he's the number one convicted-felon-former-Illinois-governor in both the audacity of his crimes, and in hairstyle.

Edit: Spelling > Me

Edited, Jun 29th 2011 9:06am by Demea

Meh, I decided I didn't give a sh:t Monday when the verdict was announced.

I really kind of thought he'd get off on some of these charges, not out of innocence but because he seemed to fail at his attempts at corruption.

I guess it's the thought that counts though.

How do you know he didn't?

The guy's a sleazy 'tard but I don't think he deserves life in prison for it.

Elinda, supposedly the issue with the government's case in the original trial was they didn't do a great job of making it clear that the crime was the intent and attempt to profit and wasn't dependent upon his success in profiting. Because he never succeeded in extracting benefits for the things we charged with, some of the original jurors felt he hadn't committed a crime. The prosecution streamlined their case this time around, dropping some of the more confusing charges and concentrating on proving Blagojevich's intent to profit.

Yeah, he was supposed to testify and the feds were going to use some of their material then. Instead, he declined to defend himself and the feds never used some of their "A" material.

This time around, the feds gave an especially piercing prosecution to which the defense kept objecting and the judge kept allowing on the grounds that there were no guarantees that Blagojevich would take the stand later when they'd usually come up.

I don't recall all the ins and outs of it. As I remember, Blagojevich said he'd testify in his defense, the feds kept some stuff for the defense phase, the prosecution phase came to an end, Blagojevich declined to take the stand and since the earlier phase was already ended, there wasn't much they could do about it. I haven't watched enough Law & Order recently to know the exact mechanics of it all.

We try.