Blagojevich's Second Trial Pushed Back To April
Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's New Trial Pushed Back To April
CHICAGO (CBS) - A federal judge on Friday granted a defense request to delay former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's retrial, pushing back the start date more than three months later than originally planned.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel set the retrial to start on April 20.
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Blagojevich's lawyers had asked for the new trial to be delayed from early January until May. They said that they needed more time to prepare now that the former governor is relying on public funds to pay for his defense and, as a result, the defense team has been pared down to two attorneys and a paralegal.
Defense attorneys noted that there were more than a dozen lawyers working on the case at the first trial.
Zagel said that prosecutors might be able to present their case in the same exact fashion as at the first trial, when jurors convicted Blagojevich of lying to federal investigators, but were deadlocked on 23 other counts.
But the judge said the defense team will likely need time to recalibrate its strategy, since the original jurors voted 11-1 to convict on many counts.
"I think they have to (change strategy), given the results," Zagel said. "The way the case is presented in terms of its tone and in terms of its tenor has to be reconsidered."
The delay could be good news for mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel, whose name came up repeatedly at the first trial, both as a victim of an alleged shakedown attempt by Blagojevich and as a middle man in discussing possible Senate picks with the Obama administration.
Emanuel has not been charged with any wrongdoing. The former White House chief of staff was subpoenaed by defense attorneys to testify at the first trial, but was not called to the stand.
Defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky said he doesn't know if the defense team will call Emanuel to the stand the second time.
The mayoral election is on Feb. 22 and if the retrial had started in early January, the defense would likely be starting its case around the same time as the election.
Sorosky said the defense team wanted to "avoid unnecessary publicity" by holding trial in the middle of the mayoral election. But Zagel said the election was not a factor in deciding to postpone the retrial.
Prosecutors had argued that Blagojevich's defense attorneys have known since August that a new trial would be coming and that they would have more than four months to prepare for the second trial. But defense attorneys said they have spent the last couple months focusing on other cases that they could not work on during the first trial.
"There was a tremendous amount of time that was spent after the Blagojevich trial was over on other cases," defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky said.
Zagel said that the first day of trial would likely be dedicated to last-minute motions and other procedural matters and that jury selection would likely begin the next day.
A status hearing has been scheduled for Dec. 3.
--Todd Feurer, cbschicago.com
