A third juror in Rod Blagojevich’s political corruption trial has bolstered the impression of a jury that was deadlocked from the start of deliberations.
Juror Ralph Schindler of Arlington Heights said today he was one of several jurors who wanted to continue deliberations on the case against the former governor.
“There were people, myself included, yesterday who were willing to stay and work longer if the group felt that we were able to achieve consensus,” said Schindler, who felt Blagojevich should have been found guilty on far more than one count. “Several of us felt that that was our task. But the majority of the group felt that we had exhausted all possibilities of reaching an agreement.”
Schindler, who is 58 years old and retired from the Navy, said the audio recordings of Blagojevich “were pretty solid evidence to me.” But he said the prosecution’s case was weakened because Blagojevich never actually appointed anybody to the open Senate seat that he allegedly was trying to sell.
“There was no conclusion to any of the alleged activities,” Schindler said. “You just couldn’t say, ‘There, it happened.’ It never happened.”
Like the foreman, Schindler declined to identify who he said was the lone holdout against convicting Blagojevich on about one-fourth of the 24 counts except to confirm that it was a woman.
“I don’t know that I’d describe it as fighting for him but she had her opinions and she stuck to them,” Schindler said.
He said the deliberations were never rancorous and the jury worked well together, but “the feeling in the room was that [unanimous resolution] was not going to happen no matter how long we stayed.”
“It was difference of opinion,” Schindler said. “We all worked very hard to understand each other’s perspective on the case. There was some passion involved on occasion when people were explaining their viewpoints but there was never any personalities involved, there was never any attacks involved … If you discuss it and deliberate and that opinion is not going to change, it’s not a coercion situation.”
Schindler said that deliberations were often balanced.
“All the counts were not 11-1,” he said. “There were several counts that were split right down the middle and there were a number a number of counts where the number of not guilty’s were larger than the number of guilty’s.”
Schindler said that he thought Judge James Zagel was fair to the defense. Rod Blagojevich’s attorneys routinely protested the treatment they had received from the bench, filing motions that claimed negative comments Zagel had made in court had polluted the case.
Schindler said he hopes another jury will hear the case and agree that Blagojevich is guilty.
“I think it’s important as closure for Illinois for this to come to a resolution and not be left hanging, as it is.”