Blagojevich Jury Ends Another Week Of Deliberations
Updated 06/23/11 - 4:18 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The jury in Rod Blagojevich's corruption retrial wrapped up their ninth day of deliberations on Thursday without reaching a verdict and went home for the weekend.
Jurors went home for the day around 4:00 p.m. after deliberating another day without sending any notes or questions to the judge. They will return for a 10th day of deliberations on Monday.
The jury is considering 20 charges against Blagojevich, including allegations that he was trying to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama in 2008. He has denied all wrongdoing.
There hasn't been any communication from jurors since last Thursday and no indication whether they are just being throrough in going through the evidence or whether they are stuck on some of the charges.
The jury has only sent two notes to U.S. District Judge James Zagel and neither gave any sign about whether or not they were close to reaching a verdict.
Their first note revealed that some jurors had extra pages for one of the transcripts of one of the FBI wiretap recordings in the case. The judge had the extra pages removed from the transcripts.
The second note, sent on the fifth day of deliberations last Thursday, asked for clarification on part of the jury instructions regarding the 10 wire fraud counts. But the judge told the jury to re-read their instructions and, if they still needed clarification, they should send another note with more specific information on what they needed to have cleared up.
The jury hasn't been heard from since.
At Blagojevich's first trial last summer, jurors deliberated 14 days before convicting him of lying to the FBI, but they were deadlocked on 23 other counts against him, leading to this year's retrial.
--Todd Feurer, CBS 2 Web Producer
