Government Shutdown Shouldn't Affect Blago Retrial
Updated 04/08/11 - 5:13 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A federal government shutdown likely wouldn't affect the retrial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich later this month.
Federal court officials said court fees would be used to keep federal courthouses nationwide operating normally for two weeks if there is a shutdown of the federal government due to a budget impasse in Washington.
Ted Newman, judicial services manager for the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, said it's "highly unlikely" Blagojevich's trial would be affected by a shutdown.
If a shutdown were to last more than two weeks, non-essential staff not involved in trials would be told to stay home, but that wouldn't affect judges, courtroom marshals and others, so trials would proceed as normal.
The chief judge for the northern Illinois district, Judge James Holderman, also sounded reassuring in a statement released by his office Friday as legislators on Capitol Hill tried to hammer out a budget deal that would avert a shutdown.
"We plan to continue to provide justice to the fullest extent possible and in the same excellent way as we have in the past," Holderman said.
Despite assurances that trials would likely not be disrupted, the administrative officials added that there were consequences of closing the government. An Administrative Office statement said, for instance, that pay for jurors and for court-appointed defense attorneys would have to be deferred during a shutdown.
Payments to jurors are usually minimal, but can help ease some of the costs of jury duty, including gas or other transportation expenses.
Blagojevich's retrial is slated to start in less than two weeks, on April 20. At his first trial last summer, Blagojevich was convicted of lying to federal agents, but jurors deadlocked on 23 other counts against him. Prosecutors have since dropped three of those counts in an effort to simplify their case.
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