Judge: Blago jury process taking 'relatively long'

Attorneys and the judge in the corruption retrial of impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich inched closer to seating a jury Wednesday after plodding along at a slower-than-usual because so many potential panelists have heard at least something about the high-profile first trial.

Questioning of would-be jurors was in its fourth day, and the people Judge James Zagel interviewed included a federal probation officer whom Zagel said he recognized, a one-time staffer for a Republican congressman and an unemployed man who spends his days watching reruns of "The Beverly Hillbillies."

Zagel said the pool of prospective jurors stood at 42 late Wednesday. While he'd said earlier that he wanted only 40 before making final decisions on the 12 jurors and six alternates, he now says he wants a few more. Fifteen jurors from the original pool could still be questioned Thursday, and Zagel also plans to have people who are reporting for general jury duty in the federal courthouse fill out the case's 38-page questionnaire just in case.

The judge had initially hoped a jury would be seated and opening statements would begin this week, but he said openings likely won't happen until Monday as jury selection drags on.

"This is relatively long jury selection for federal court," Zagel said, though he said he once presided over an eight-week trial that had six weeks of jury selection.

Blagojevich's first trial last summer ended with a hung jury, with a single holdout juror preventing a conviction on several key counts. That outcome drove home just how vital jury selection is to both sides in Blagojevich's retrial.

The first jury did find Blagojevich guilty of lying to the FBI. He has pleaded not guilty to all 20 charges he faces at the retrial, including that he tried to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat in exchange for campaign cash or a top job.

Blagojevich's initial trial drew intense media coverage and virtually all of the prospective jurors questioned by Zagel have said they knew something about the case — with several even saying they knew it in detail. As in previous days, several indicated they had concluded that Blagojevich must be guilty of something.

"I think he's guilty of trying to sell a position," one state employee wrote on her questionnaire. But she, as all others who said they had reached similar conclusions, added they could consider the evidence without bias.

A woman who works for an IT company told Zagel her husband once worked as a volunteer for a Blagojevich campaign when he ran for Congress in the 1990s. But she said that wouldn't influence her view of the evidence.

Many potential jurors, as on earlier days, said Wednesday they feared that serving on the jury for weeks on end would hit them hard financially. One marketing manager said $3.5 million in contracts could potentially be lost to his company if he ended up on Blagojevich's jury.

The retrial is not expected to last as long as the first trial — which spanned 2 1/2-months — in part because prosecutors have streamlined their case.