Legal Commentary

Blagojevich Jury Deliberations: Day Three

By Jeralyn

The jury now wants transcripts of the entire trial, and the judge has agreed, although they will have to ask for them by witness name.

Rod Blagojevich objected, Robert Blagojevich and the Government did not.

The Judge has also denied Rod Blagojevich's last motion for mistrial based on closing arguments. [More...]

Blago also filed another objection to the jury instructions on Tuesday. From Blago's motion, available on PACER:

The government‟s instructions, of which a significant number were non-pattern, were one-sided statements of the law that are misleading for the jury. The court overruled objections made by the defense. In some instances, not only did the court overrule a defense objection to an instruction being given, but edited the instruction to make the problem with the instruction even more egregious. One example of this is government instruction number 48. When first proposed, it read, “The term “anything of value” includes money, property, and employment.” After a defense objection to this instruction, the court, sua sponte, changed the instruction to read, “The term “anything of value” includes money, property, and prospective employment.” Adding the „prospective‟ language is unnecessary, and catered to the facts of this case in an effort to aid the prosecution in securing a conviction. Defense counsel strenuously objects to this ruling and the overall prejudicial pattern of rulings by the court.

The conensus among media twitterers right now is there will be no verdict today.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 30, 2010 (boomark / email).