Jurors have announced they have reached a decision on 17 counts in the Michael Madigan case but are deadlocked on 12 others and don’t believe they can be unanimous.
The announcement came Wednesday morning on the panel’s 11th day of deliberations, which began the afternoon of Jan. 29.
Michael Madigan convicted of bribery conspiracy at landmark trial; jury cannot agree on racketeering
A note sent to U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey announced the impasse. After some discussion, attorneys and Blakey agreed to send a note back to jurors telling them they do not have to reach a unanimous verdict on all counts and if they want to render a partial verdict they should leave those counts blank on the verdict form.
“This jury’s been incredibly conscientious, they’ve been very forthcoming and candid in terms of being frank with the court, and they have said here ‘we have tried our very best’ … so I think I have a more than adequate basis to mistry the counts for which there is not unanimous agreement,” Blakey said.
Madigan faces 23 counts in the indictment, while his co-defendant Michael McClain faces 6. It was not clear from jurors’ note which counts the jurors have agreed upon.
A deadlock raises the possibility of a retrial — a daunting prospect, given that Madigan’s trial has lasted more than four months and the landscape for federal corruption prosecutions is rapidly changing.
Deadlocks and mistrials are not unheard of in Chicago corruption cases. In September, jurors failed to reach a verdict in the trial of Paul La Schiazza, the former AT&T boss who was accused of bribing Madigan. And most prominently, the first trial of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich ended when jurors could only reach agreement on one of the 24 counts he faced. Blagojevich was convicted upon retrial — then, just this week, he was granted a full pardon by President Donald Trump.
Madigan, 82, a Southwest Side Democrat, and his longtime confidant, Michael McClain, 77, of downstate Quincy, are charged in a 23-count indictment with racketeering conspiracy and other crimes related to Madigan’s record run as House speaker.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
rlong@chicagotribune.com
Jurors have announced they have reached a decision on 17 counts in the Michael Madigan case but are deadlocked on 12 others and don’t believe they can be unanimous.
Jurors in the marathon trial of ex-speaker Michael Madigan were to return Wednesday to “start fresh,” in their words, after ending deliberations early on Tuesday afternoon.
Wednesday marks their 11th day of deliberating, and they have been remarkably quiet for most of it.
Their most recent note to the judge, sent up at about 3 p.m. Tuesday, said merely “We have reached our limit for today. We would like to leave early and start fresh in the morning.” U.S. District John Robert Blakey granted their request.
Besides that note, the jury, which began deliberating on the afternoon of Jan. 29, was silent all day, sending no other questions on the law or notes signaling where they were in their discussions.
Their last substantive communication came on Friday, when they sent the judge a question delving deep into the legal weeds on what can be considered a “thing of value.”
They also asked for two binders full of wiretap transcripts.
As of Tuesday afternoon they had deliberated for roughly 63 hours — one of the longest deliberations in any major federal public corruption trial in the past two decades. The jury in the case against former Gov. George Ryan reached a guilty verdict after 10 days of deliberations in 2006, while ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted at his 2011 retrial on the 11th day.
The jury in the “ComEd Four” bribery case, which featured evidence that overlapped significantly with some of the evidence in the Madigan trial, reached a verdict after about 27 hours. And jurors in the racketeering trial of former Ald. Ed Burke found him guilty in about 23 hours.
Madigan, 82, of Chicago’s Southwest Side, was for decades the most powerful man in Illinois politics, reigning over the state Democratic Party and setting a national record for longest-serving speaker of a state house. He is charged in a racketeering indictment that accused him of running his political and government operations like a criminal enterprise. McClain, 77, is a retired lobbyist from downstate Quincy.
Jurors have to consider 23 counts against Madigan alleging an array of schemes to enrich his political allies and line his pockets. McClain is charged in six of those counts.
In addition to alleging plans to pressure developers into hiring Madigan’s law firm, the indictment accuses Madigan and McClain of bribery schemes involving ComEd and AT&T Illinois, where the utilities allegedly funneled payments through do-nothing subcontracts to a handful of the speaker’s closest allies.
To assist their deliberations, jurors have about 100 pages of legal instructions, dozens of undercover recordings, and hundreds of emails, texts and other documents entered into evidence.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com
rlong@chicagotribune.com
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