From “Da Jolt,” as they call it in Chicago:
Bla-going Back to Court Again
To quote (and mildly clean up) Dennis Miller, “The entire American legal system is based on the premise of trial by jury, and the only way you can get on a jury is if you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you don’t know squat about the case you are about to try.” I also recall him arguing that the legal system need to be revised to three categories: ‘not guilty’, ‘guilty’, and ‘are you kidding me?’ For a long while, the one-man white collar crime wave known as Blago appeared to be in that third category.
Remember, any accused criminal from the world’s most corrupt politician to axe murderers can always walk if they happen to get one stubborn idiot out of twelve random citizens: “Jurors were just one vote shy of convicting Rod Blagojevich of the most explosive charge against him: Trying to sell the U.S. Senate Seat left vacant by Barack Obama. The foreman also said jurors came close to convictions on a number of the 24 counts against the former governor — as close as 11-1 — but remained far apart on others.”
The important thing is that Blago learned his lesson, right? Eh, never mind: “After a federal jury convicted him of just one count — lying to the FBI — and deadlocked on 23 other counts, Rod Blagojevich declared his innocence today and defiantly taunted prosecutors. ‘The government threw everything but the kitchen sink at me, and on every charge but one, they could not prove that I broke any laws except one, a nebulous charge from five years ago,’ he told a crush of reporters at the Dirksen Federal Building this afternoon. ‘I did not lie to the FBI. I told the truth from the very beginning.’ ‘We have a prosecutor who has wasted and wanted to spend tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to take me away from my family and my home,’ he continued, accusing the government of persecuting him. In a theatrical burst of emotion, Blagojevich attorney Sam Adam Sr. went after U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. ‘This guy Fitzgerald is a master at indicting people for noncriminal activity,’ he said. ‘This guy is nuts.’”
What is he, a Joe Pesci character?