The jury in Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial told the judge today that they have only come to unanimous agreement on two of the 24 charges.
As for the other 22 charges, the jury said they haven’t even begun to discuss the 11 wire fraud charges. They have not been able to come to a decision on the other 11.
According to the Sun Times, Judge James Zagel is instructing the jurors to keep trying:
You should deliberate on the wire fraud counts to the extent necessary to enable you to decide on those counts. We recognize that your stated inability to reach agreement on other counts may have established to your satisfaction that you would be similarly unable to reach unanimity on some or all of the wire fraud counts. Nonetheless, a deliberative decision by you on each of those counts should be made, even if it is a decision that you cannot reach unanimity on any of those counts.
Lawyers for both sides agreed to the wording.
According to reports, the jury yesterday sent a note to the judge asking what to do if they were deadlocked on some charges. The judge told them to give him more details on which charges they were struggling with.
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