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Free railroaded Rod Blagojevich
Topic Started: Jul 21 2015, 07:59 PM (229 Views)
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CHICAGO (CBS) — A federal appeals court has thrown out some of the convictions against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and tossed out his 14-year prison sentence.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its ruling Tuesday, throwing out five of the 18 convictions on corruption charges Blagojevich had faced. Eleven were tied to allegations he tried to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama’s Senate seat.
Although the ruling ordered a new trial on those five charges, it also said if prosecutors elect to drop those charges, a new trial is not needed, and the district court should proceed directly to a new sentencing. A new sentencing would not necessarily mean Blagojevich’s sentence would be reduced.

Blagojevich, 58, has been in prison in near Denver since March 2012, but the appeals court said he is not entitled to be released from custody pending further proceedings, likely because it upheld convictions on 13 other counts, and he will still likely face a long prison sentence on those charges.

The judges vacated Blagojevich’s convictions on five charges that he tried to swap an appointment of Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to the president’s former Senate seat in exchange for any of a number of benefits for Blagojevich — from an appointment to Obama’s cabinet, to a high-paying private sector job, to setting up a well-funded non-profit that Blagojevich could oversee.

The court said there was an error in the jury instructions for those counts.
“A jury could have found that Blagojevich asked the President-elect for a private-sector job, or for funds that he could control, but the instructions permitted the jury to convict even if it found that his only request of Sen. Obama was for a position in the Cabinet. The instructions treated all proposals alike. We conclude, however, that they are legally different: a proposal to trade one public act for another, a form of logrolling, is fundamentally unlike the swap of an official act for a private payment,” the court wrote. “Because the instructions do not enable us to be sure that the jury found that Blagojevich offered to trade the appointment for a private salary after leaving the Governorship, these convictions cannot stand.”
The court said trading one political appointment for another “is a common exercise in logrolling,” and could find no previous criminal convictions based on such actions. They also pointed to a famous deal supposedly struck by former California Governor Earl Warren, who — legend has it — threw his support behind Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election, in exchange for a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court after Eisenhower won.

“If the standard account is true both the President of the United States and the Chief Justice of the United States should have gone to prison,” the court wrote. “Yet although historians and political scientists have debated whether this deal was made, or whether if made was ethical (or politically unwise), no one to our knowledge has suggested that it violated the statutes involved in this case.”
To read the entire opinion, click here.

The U.S. Attorney’s office declined comment on the ruling.
At a press conference outside the former governor’s home, BLagojevich’s attorney Leonard Goodman hadn’t yet spoken with Blagojevich about his next steps.

“The evidence that would have acquitted him was excluded at trial and my advice to the governor is that he should fight on,”Goodman said.
Patti Blagojevich said the family was disappointed that the ruling didn’t go far enough.
“The only thing good that I can say today is that possibly this is a step in the right direction of getting Rod home to his family,” she said.
Patti said she had spoken with Rod about the decision and that he was disappointed but optimistic

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/07/21/appeals-court-tosses-blagojevich-prison-sentence/

More at link, he is less a crook than others out of Illinois.
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Tybee
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That slime is right where he needs to be.
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Naaaah......he needs to be out with the rest of the slime that belong in there with him.
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Erna
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While in the "joint" has Rod experienced the pain - and the pleasure - of satisfying the black man?
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Tybee
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Orange is a good color for Rod. :lol
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Poor thing, can't dye his hair in the big house.
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Edited by Tybee, Jul 22 2015, 06:03 AM.
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Seexxyy!!
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Erna
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Rod is no more of a criminal than all other politicias, it's just that his fellow criminals decided for whatever reason, to "take Rod out."
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Mrs Patrick Campbell
Jul 22 2015, 02:09 AM
While in the "joint" has Rod experienced the pain - and the pleasure - of satisfying the black man?
Do you experience this when you get with black men as trick$?
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Erna
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Jul 22 2015, 02:15 PM
Mrs Patrick Campbell
Jul 22 2015, 02:09 AM
While in the "joint" has Rod experienced the pain - and the pleasure - of satisfying the black man?
Do you experience this when you get with black men as trick$?
Actually we recall a rich and hot Negro doctor in LA, about 40, who was recently either separated or divorced from a stinkfish, who would regularly order our 'visit$' to his condo.

He was lots of fun and very generou$!
Edited by Erna, Jul 22 2015, 03:04 PM.
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