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Interview With Jurors in Rod Blagojevich Retrial

There was no holdout for "not guilty" in the retrial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. It's always interesting to get a glimpse of what goes on in the jury deliberation room, and the jurors in Blago's trial are talking.

Instead of secret votes, they used the "fist to five" method:

Secret ballots don’t show where people truly are, Wilson said, so the jurors resorted to what they called the “fist to five” method. If a juror’s fist was closed, Blagojevich was not guilty. If the juror showed five fingers, he was guilty.

“And then you have everything in between,” Wilson explained. “That led us to see openly people’s opinions of where they were in the process.”

The jurors didn't think Blagojevich was credible. They thought he was playing to them. Some of them found him personable, but thought the evidence of his guilt was overwhelming. The downside for Blago taking the stand is that if the Judge thinks he lied during his testimony, he will bump up his sentencing guidelines by two levels. Blago is free on bond until sentencing.

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    No (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by jimakaPPJ on Tue Jun 28, 2011 at 02:02:04 PM EST
    I don't think that non-secret ballots are good for a jury, or any other function requiring a vote. Too many people are influenced what the "majority" does.

    Exactly right, Jim. (5.00 / 0) (#2)
    by jeffinalabama on Tue Jun 28, 2011 at 04:04:22 PM EST
    The Solomon Asch experiments in the 1950s or early 1960s demonstrated people will say something they don't believe just to fit in with a group of strangers.

    Parent
    Interesting factoid. (none / 0) (#3)
    by oculus on Tue Jun 28, 2011 at 05:15:21 PM EST