Blagojevich's lawyer is asking that the Court of Appeals toss the corruption convictions.


CHICAGO (AP) — Imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will on Friday get what will likely be his last chance to win his freedom as a three-judge federal panel hears oral arguments in his appeal.

A lawyer for the disgraced Illinois Democrat was to appear before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to ask it to toss Blagojevich's corruption convictions.

Short of that, Blagojevich's defense team hopes the court will at least agree to reduce his 14-year prison term, which was one of the longest sentences ever imposed for political corruption in a state where four of the last seven governors have gone to prison.

FBI agents arrested then-Gov. Blagojevich five years ago this week, on Dec. 9, 2008. A jury convicted him of wide-ranging charges in 2011, including for trying to profit from his power to name someone to President Barack Obama's old U.S. Senate seat.

The onetime contestant on NBC's "Apprentice" won't be at Friday's hearing in Chicago. He remains behind bars a thousand miles away, now in his second year at a Colorado prison.


Friday's arguments are an opportunity for judges to fire questions at the defense and prosecution. They've already seen the 100-page appeal that defense lawyers filed in July and the government's 169-page response that was filed last month.


The most novel argument in the appeal is that Blagojevich's bid to secure an ambassadorship or some other high-paying job for himself in exchange for an appointment to the Senate seat was far from being a crime; it was part of run-of-the-mill "political horse-trading."

In their November filing, prosecutors balked at the notion that what Blagojevich did was commonplace, writing that, "A public official who sells his office engages in crime, not politics."

They also addressed the allegedly biased juror. A partially formed opinion, they noted, isn't in itself grounds for booting someone from a jury, provided that would-be jurors assure a judge they will decide a verdict based only on evidence at trial. Juror No. 174 gave that assurance.

Blagojevich's appeal seems to face long odds.




Read or Share this story: