Blagojevich trial jury selection, June 5, 2010, Rod Blagojevich familiarity

Some of you may be weary of hearing about the Rod Blagojevich trial. Some of you may be wondering why Citizen Wells has spent so much energy attempting to provide the complete picture of Blagojevich and his involvement in Chicago and IL corruption over many years. Here are some of the main reasons.

• We have a biased media that has misrepresented Blagojevich and his corruption ties.
• We have an entertainment culture. We have less news coverage and more entertainment presented. Blagojevich played this card.
• The Blagojevich indictment is far more complex than the alleged selling of the senate seat.
• The timing of Blagojevich’s arrest and subsequent actions by the US Justice Dept and Obama Administration are highly suspect.
• Blagojevich corruption is directly tied to Barack Obama.

In a perfect world, juries should know little about someone on trial. However, in this case, the indicted, impeached ex governor of IL, whose name was mentioned repeatedly over many weeks during the Rezko trial, during the presidential run of fellow Illinois resident and crony Obama, gives one cause for further concern.

From the Chicago Tribune June 5, 2010.

“Blagoje-who?
Despite ex-governor’s TV forays, some jury candidates don’t know much about him”

“One prospective juror for the corruption trial of Rod Blagojevich said her familiarity with the former governor was limited to TV wisecracks she heard from Jay Leno.

“He was a joke or something,” the woman said.
Another potential juror is a labor organizer who spent months in Minnesota in 2008 working on the U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Al Franken. She too confessed that most of what she knew about the longtime Illinois chief executive could be summed up by his recent TV appearance on “Celebrity Apprentice.”

Ever since Blagojevich’s arrest in December 2008, his legal troubles and grandstanding have been a subject of saturation news coverage as well as merciless lampooning from critics and comedians. Even so, a large share of those being sized up for the jury by U.S. District Judge James Zagel told him their understanding of the governor and his troubles was surface at best.

All of which goes to underscore a strangely symbiotic relationship between Illinois’ often ridiculed political culture and the very busy legal system aimed at rooting out corruption. Impartial juries require members who don’t know much about the defendants whose fate they will weigh. And it is surprisingly easy, even in the highest profile of cases, to find jurors who fit that description.”

“More typical were the comments of a female juror candidate identified during the proceedings as No. 119. The woman, who works in investment accounting, said she is an avid runner whose main source of printed information was the magazine Runners World.

Asked by Zagel if she kept up on the news, the woman said no.

“I don’t have time,” she explained. “I have two daughters, and we don’t have cable.””

Read more:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/blagojevich/ct-met-blagojevich-trial-0606-20100605,0,3779036.story?page=1