Judge Won't Rule On Blagojevich's Motion To Cancel Trial
UPDATED 03/21/11 12:46 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS/WBBM) -- A judge said Monday that he does not believe a motion by deposed Gov. Rod Blagojevich to call off his retrial is serious, and so he declined to rule formally on it.
U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel told attorneys Monday that he does not have the authority to cancel a trial. He said he expects the motion to forgo the trial and just sentence Blagojevich on the one count on which he was convicted, will "go away by itself" and "vanish into thin air."
As WBBM Newsradio 780's John Cody reports, Blagojevich is set to go on trial again next month on corruption charges. But his attorneys had filed a motion to have him sentenced on the one count on which he was convicted in his last trial, and end the proceedings there.
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"The government's continued prosecution of this case should cease. This case was tried once, at a full trial which lasted over two months," Blagojevich's attorneys wrote in their motion earlier this month. "While Blagojevich still maintains his innocence on every charge, he stands convicted, after the first trial, of the offense of making a false statement. He must be sentenced on that conviction."
Defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky said before the hearing Monday that if Blagojevich were sentenced on the one count, federal prosecutors would get the prison term they seek, and taxpayers would be saved a lot of money.
Sorosky says his sense of coffee-shop conversations is that the public has lost interest in the case.
In his first trial last year, Blagojevich was convicted on just one charge of lying to the FBI. The jury deadlocked on the other 23 counts against him.
Blagojevich paid for that first trial with money from his political campaign fund, but that money dried up by the end of the first trial and now the federal government has to foot the bill for his defense.
Judge Zagel has ruled that Blagojevich can have public funds for two attorneys and a paralegal. But Blagojevich's attorneys said in the motion that they haven't been paid in almost nine months.
Experts believe it is unlikely that the motion will be approved.
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