Blagojevich Appears At Chicago Comic Con

theodp writes "Earlier this week, a federal jury convicted Former Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich of lying to the FBI and deadlocked on 23 other charges. Still, that didn't stop Blago from connecting with his 'loyal supporters' Saturday at the Chicago Comic Con, where the ex-Gov charged $80 for each photo taken with him and $50 for autographs. He even hob-knobbed with celebrities like Adam West and Richard Roundtree. 'I met Batman. I met Shaft, and I know something about getting the shaft,' Blagojevich said."

Comments

Getting the shaft?

[DurendalMac]

Oh, you're gonna know something about getting the shaft, all right. The shaft, head, balls, the whole thing. Blag is unbelievable. He's guilty as sin and everyone but him seems to know it.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[damn_registrars]

He's guilty as sin and everyone but him seems to know it.

It appears based on the jury results that there is at least one other person in the country who wasn't convinced. In spite of what you may believe to be the facts of the case, US law does say that for these charges a unanimous jury verdict is required to convict the accused.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[NormalVisual]

It appears based on the jury results that there is at least one other person in the country who wasn't convinced

Or perhaps was "convinced" to not be convinced...

Re:Getting the shaft?

[bhartman34]

The man was obviously corrupt as shit out of a whore's ass. How much would you like to bet that there was jury tampering involved here?

Re:Getting the shaft?

[mr_mischief]

Yeah, a former state employee from Chicago voted not to convict the former state governor from Chicago. Shocking? No. This is Chicago we're talking about. She probably also voted for him four times in each of his two elections for governor in the first place.

If they want a truly fair trial for him, they need to move it to another federal district. If they want a sure conviction, they should move it somewhere in Illinois south of Interstate 80.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[Moryath]

Blago is your standard corrupt Chicago politician.

Remember, this is same the city where the dead rise to vote on a yearly basis.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[Moryath]

Did you read the comments from the lone juror holdout? Who "just happened" to be a state employee, "just happened" to have worked on Blago's campaign, and was probably guaranteed a spot on someone else's campaign staff in the future as payoff for hanging the jury?

This is just typical Chicago corruption as usual.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[bhartman34]

How in the hell was someone like that not excluded from the jury?? Was the prosecutor in on the whole thing???

Re:Getting the shaft?

[Moryath]

Welcome to the land of "jury selection."

Essentially, each side only gets so many challenges. They can try to challenge for cause, but they get only a few "peremptory challenges" (removing someone they are worried about without saying why). Further, the peremptory challenges are restricted because you have to be extremely careful about striking certain people lest someone scream about "racism", "sexism", "ageism", etc.

Most likely, since the woman was not a "direct employee of Blagojevich", the judge ruled that she couldn't be struck from the jury with cause even though she was one of his former campaign workers, since campaign work is often a paid position and they could argue that it was "just a job." That would have meant that it would burn a peremptory challenge to get her removed, and there were probably some people the prosecution wanted on the jury even less that they'd already used all their peremptories on.

The other thing that potential tampered/"ringer" jurors trying to slip into a case like this will pull is trying to put themselves at the back of the line. Remember, voir dire works in sequential order, either one juror at a time or banks-of-twelve at a time. If the prosecution had already used up all their peremptories by the time she came up in the process, they were stuck with her.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[mdmkolbe]

If the prosecution had already used up all their peremptories by the time she came up in the process, they were stuck with her.

Really? When I was called for jury service, the layers declared their peremptories after they interviewed all the potential jurors.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[Tassach]

You don't understand the mentality of straight-party-ticket voters.

It doesn't matter what THEIR guys do, only what the OTHER team's guys do. The attitude is, "Well, he might be a crook but he's OUR crook".

I've been involved in state politics. It's unbelievable. I've seen guys with FELONY FRAUD CONVICTIONS get re-nominated time and again for their state House of Representative seat because they have the weight of the local political machine behind them (and, presumably, because they've got dirt on somebody higher up).

It happens at the national level, too. The only thing that can come up with that explains Michael Steele's continued tenure at the helm of the GOP after strippergate and all the other scandals is that he's got the key to a closet full of skeletons.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[Moryath]

On a jury, the other jurors can go to the judge and say, "This woman isn't considering the evidence and isn't following the law." It takes a lot more chutzpah to do something that brazen.

Actually, short of getting into a major fistfight, it's very rare and difficult for anyone to get tossed off of a jury, even if there is an alternate still available. Most of the time it requires someone getting physically violent. Only in the most rare circumstances - a juror sits in the corner, states something that should have been enough to have them removed before trial began but which they failed to bring up when the Judge asked the standard "is there any other reason you feel you cannot render a fair verdict?" - can a judge remove the juror otherwise. So as odd as it sounds, as long as the juror who was deliberately there to rig the verdict for Blagojevich kept talking, there's nothing that could be done once she'd managed to slip into the jury.

Once you are down to 12 jurors, the judge doesn't have room to toss anyone - should a juror need to be removed (major illness req. hospitalization, physical violence, etc) the only other option is to declare a mistrial without reaching any verdict at all.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[DavidTC]

While I generally believe you, and I don't doubt that Steele knows some stuff, I suspect a better explanation for him is that Republicans have no idea how to cope with race.

For the longest time, the right has complained bout 'racial quotas' and stuff, and I though they were just ginning up anger, but they're serious.

They simply cannot judge people of other race based on their merits, on their skills, on, as MLKj put it, the content of their characters. They look at a black person and they don't see 'good leader' or 'bad leader', they see 'black person'. If they are forced to hire black people they will, indeed, select them randomly.

With Steele, they managed to do that to their boss, which is just outright hilarious.

Of course, it didn't help that the pool of black people willing to work for the Republicans was pretty low to start with.

I don't doubt that there are a lot of skeletons in various closets, but I suspect that they wouldn't let Micheal Steele have access to them that fast. (OTOH, he did apparently know about the lesbian strip club.)

Re:Getting the shaft?

[khallow]

Really? When I was called for jury service, the layers declared their peremptories after they interviewed all the potential jurors.

Jury selection varies by state and probably depends a little on the resource constraints of the court as well. In California, I was on a jury for a murder case (the actual sentence could have scaled from self-defense/no crime through involuntary and voluntary manslaughter up to murder one without death penalty) and we were selected in batches of six.

Re:Getting the shaft?

[DavidTC]

Dude, you do realize we were actually complaining about the job performance of a black person, right? And wondering how the hell he got in charge of the RNC.

You know, the guy who recently said Afghanistan is a war of Obama's choosing? Which is an...odd position for the head of the RNC to take.

If it wasn't something to do with race, then the Republicans are just simple idiots for hiring Steele.

WTF?

[mfh]

I can't be the only one who is wondering what the fuck this guy is doing at a comic book gathering. Are comic books becoming circus acts and carnivals now?

My childhood is at risk here, fellas.

Re:WTF?

[skids]

He's a clown. It's is natural instinct to search out the nearest carnival-like environment. Preferably one with lots of rolling cameras.

Re:Is a party switch coming up?

[drinkypoo]

which generally isn't in the playbook of the party he ran under - although it is very much in the playbook of the other party.

What other party? Trying to draw a meaningful distinction between the lying democans and the lying republicrats is the joke.

Re:Corruption threatens "soul and fabric" of U.S.

[mr_mischief]

He was not found not guilty. He was convicted on one of 24 counts and the jury deadlocked on 23 counts. A deadlocked jury doesn't count as an acquittal or a conviction, and he can (and most likely will) be retried on 23 counts.

He belongs there!

[AnonymousClown]

See, he's sitting in the Batmobile.

Now, look at his name "Blagojevich".

Remove the vowels...."Blgjvch"

And....TA DA! Batman villain! He's incognito, though. When he's in his villain mode, he wears a brightly colored suit with skin tight pants with both political party's symbols all over it.

There's many more like him. And there's another political villain called "Three face" - he's a Conservative, then a Liberal, and then a Centrist.

They're out there and only Batman can save us!

Re:He belongs there!

[hedwards]

Damn, if only Adam We weren't so busy trying to figure out who was stealing his water.

Re:Corruption threatens "soul and fabric" of U.S.

[bsDaemon]

I heard on NPR that the judge declared a mistrial with regards to the remaining 23 accounts and has ordered a retrial. Of course, going into that with wide-spread public knowledge of the other conviction, plus constantly pulling stunts like this, isn't really going to help him. Although, I think the big question is, who would pay $80 to get their picture taken with this greasy douchebag?

Re:chutzpah

[Mitchell314]

This is why we should vote for the greater evil. True villains don't have the time to waste on petty scandals.

Zombie constituents

[Dogtanian]

Blago is your standard corrupt Chicago politician. Remember, this is same the city where the dead rise to vote on a yearly basis.

They should put up a candidate with the surname "Brain" then. Or "Brainsssssss". He'd win a landslide....

Well, assuming he didn't get his.... well, brains eaten, that is.

Re:Zombie constituents

[fizzup]

They should put up a candidate with the surname "Brain" then. Or "Brainsssssss". He'd win a landslide....

Well, assuming he didn't get his.... well, brains eaten, that is.

I don't think that would be an impediment to victory...

"loyal supporters"

[Culture20]

People are paying $80 a photo to get a joke photo. Something they can show a friend and say "look, blag showed up atcomic con. What a desperate loser." and that coming from comic con goers is mighty damning.

Re:Is a party switch coming up?

[hedwards]

Rupert Murdoch just made a huge donation to the Republican party to elect Republican candidates in gubernatorial races. He's also an individual who's been known to bribe the odd politician here and there. When he purchased his American media holdings, he wasn't at the time legally allowed to do it due to a ban on foreign ownership of the media. A suspiciously large book advance to Newt Gingrich and a bit latter he's legally owning a media conglomerate. And since then his "news" organization has been overtly advocating for conservative candidates, which is an absolute no-no for a news organization to do.

What did it cost?

[arctan1701]

What did it cost to punch Blago in the face?

I'm ashamed

[roc97007]

...to be associated with any comics con attendees who paid $80 for a photo of Blago. Just ashamed.

Comic-con seems appropriate...

[jd2112]

Since he's an example of a real-life supervillan.

I'm going to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder! Buahahaha!

3-5 years maybe less if you take a deal

[Joe The Dragon]

3-5 years maybe less if you take a deal

Re:Is a party switch coming up?

[MickyTheIdiot]

The Onion has a lot more accurate information.

PAYING for autographs and photos?

[trawg]

I'm sorry, what? I cannot imagine anywhere here in Australia ever willingly handing over money to a politician for a photo or an autograph. Is that a normal thing for an American politician to do?

I can understand people paying actors, celebs, writers, artists etc at a ComicCon for that sort of thing. I personally wouldn't do it (and I say that as a pretty avid comic fan), but I can understand why people would. But politicians?

Re:Is a party switch coming up?

[Cwix]

Excellent point, I offer my apologies to The Onion for comparing them to fox news.