Jury in Michael Madigan trial raises question, but still no verdict
CHICAGO (CBS) — Jurors in former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's corruption trial ended their eight day of deliberations without a verdict on Friday, but did ask two questions as they continue weighing Madigan's fate.
The jury asked for more copies of wiretap transcripts and for stipulations that have been made in the case.
Jurors also asked about part of their instructions which says, "bona fide salary, wages, fees or other compensation paid in the usual course of business do not qualify as a thing of value."
Federal prosecutors suggested shortening the instructions to the jury, but defense attorneys objected, and the judge rejected that proposal
Instead, U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang said he would clarify the instructions by telling jurors that salaries can be deemed a "valuable thing" or "something of value" if they are paid through bribery.
Madigan and his longtime political ally Michael McClain face a 23-count indictment charging them with racketeering, bribery, wire fraud, and attempted extortion.
Prosecutors have claimed ComEd and AT&T provided no-show jobs to Madigan's associates in order to win his support for legislation that would benefit them in Springfield. Madigan is also accused of pressuring real estate developers to hire his law firm, which specializes in property tax appeals, in exchange for his help.
CBS News Chicago legal analyst Irv Miller said the question the jury asked about their instructions goes to the heart of the prosecution's case.
"They needed substantial qualifications as to what constitutes having these no-show guys working, and getting paid, and determine whether or not that was done with intent – the magic word intent – to influence a public official to do some type of official action, which could be considered bribery," Miller said.
Miller said, while it's not unusual for jurors to seek clarifications in jury instructions, he has never seen a change in jury instructions after deliberations have started.
"In all my years as a prosecutor and as a criminal defense attorney, doing this for a long time, I've never seen that happen," he said. "What you don't want to do is have a technicality like this end up going to the appellate court and having the case reversed because they made a mistake in trying to re-issue jury instructions. That's why the government is saying they don't want to do it. They want a clean record. They don't want to leave another potential issue up for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals if there is a conviction in this case."
Chang was on the bench for Friday's question from the jury because the trial judge, U.S. District Judge John Blakey was unable to be in court. However, Chang said he was conferring with Blakey by phone and text messages to determine how to respond to the jury's questions.
"It's not a big deal at all. There's always an emergency judge on duty, just in case the regularly assigned presiding judge can't be in court, but the emergency judge doesn't make any substantive rulings, because he doesn't know anything about the case," Miller said. "So what happened today is the substitute emergency judge basically contacted the presiding judge by telephone and by text to try to get the presiding judge's rulings on what that emergency judge should tell the jury, and that's exactly what happened today."
Miller said the note from the jury also could signal that deliberations could go on for a few more days. Deliberations are set to resume on Monday.
