Jury in Michael Madigan federal corruption trial heads home for 7th day without verdict
The jury in former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan's federal corruption trial went home without a verdict for the seventh day Thursday.
There was again radio silence, with no notes at all coming from jurors, whose last communication to the court was on Tuesday. Even that was only regarding scheduling.
If not for an unrelated sentencing hearing, courtroom 1203 remained mostly empty Thursday, as a jury of eight women and four men have now spent around 43 hours over seven days deliberating Madigan's fate.
"I'm not sure that we can read very much into how long it's been taking for the jury to deliberate. This was a very long trial with lots of evidence and lots of material that the jury is going to need to go through. So, the fact that they've been going on now seven days or so is not all then unusual given the length of the trial," said Chris Hotaling, a former federal prosecutor.
Making any predictions even harder is the fact that, over the last week, the jurors have had only one question, as they sought to find the transcript for a specific phone call for which they did not have the exhibit number.
"The fact that there haven't been notes either asking for additional instructions on the law or to have particular evidence or testimony read back, which is a common note that we sometimes hear, the fact that we haven't seen that really does suggest that they were very much paying attention during the trial, that they probably took really good notes and have what they need to do the deliberations," Hotaling said.
Even as media and other legal observers attempt to read the tea leaves and make predictions on how much longer deliberations could take, it's worth remembering that jurors in former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's first trial deliberated for 14 days before a mistrial was declared.
Former Gov. George Ryan's lasted 19 days, when, after the first eight, the judge dismissed two jurors, and deliberations had to start all over again.
"This is consistent. It's very much consistent with that. Ryan was a long trial. Blago was a long trial. This was a long trial. And so, the fact that we're only at seven days actually, maybe to say that they certainly have a few more days to go, so we'll see," Hotaling said.
Jurors will reconvene for their eighth day of deliberations at 9 a.m. Friday at the Dirksen Federal Building.
