In a response to an appellate court mandate, Judge James Zagel issued an order Tuesday clarifying why he denied a motion from a group of media organizations to reveal the names of the jurors in Rod Blagojevich‘s federal corruption trial.
Zagel wrote that he already excused one juror who would “have likely served as one of the twelve,” and that the revelation of her identity “would have served no end that has been identified in the papers before me.”
In his order, Zagel raised the specific concern that jurors could be contacted through social networking sites like Facebook.
“An opinionated member of the public need only learn a jurors’ name and search for that juror on Facebook in order to send him or her unsolicited messages,” the judge wrote.
Zagel also expressed concern about breaking his promise to jurors at the start of the trial about ensuring their anonymity.
“It is one thing to tell a jury you have botched the ‘buyer-seller’ instruction and blame it on typographical error and then re-instruct,” Zagel wrote. “It is another to abandon a personal commitment to each juror… .”
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for July 23.
In other trial news, the ex-governor’s attorneys have filed another motion for acquittal.
“Even when considered in the light most favorable to the government,” the motion, filed Tuesday, stated, “the evidence presented in this case does not rise to guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. As far as at least one allegation in the indictment and Santiago proffer, the government presented no evidence whatsoever.”