As a former federal prosecutor, I hated hung juries and having to retry a case! I have always said that having to retry a criminal case is almost as bad as having to eat yesterday's oatmeal. While the oatmeal might not have been too tasty the day before, it is downright awful tasting today!
But it seems that the federal prosecutors preparing for the retrial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich are at least trying to make his re-trial a little less onerous this time around. According to various news reports, the government has dropped a number of charges, including the complex RICO charge, in order to streamline their case and to make it more palatable to a jury.
In other news, this week, the federal judge presiding over this case has also decided not to reveal the names of jurors who will be selected in the trial, slated to begin April 20th, until after the trial is over. So, it appears that all the parties in that case are trying to learn from the last trial, which ended in a hung jury on most counts of the indictment.
Perhaps if the judge really wanted to shake things up and streamline the upcoming trial, he would announce that all the jurors and parties will be required to eat yesterday's oatmeal unitil the trial is over! That would speed things up, wouldn't it!?
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