Rogue Juror Votes Against Guilty Verdict For Rod Blagojevich In 23 Of 24 Counts

The mass confusion surrounding the trials and mistrials of former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich continue, a day after he was found guilty of one charge of lying to the FBI and the judge called a mistrial on the other 23 racketeering, bribery, and other corruption charges. Now some of the jurors have come out and said that eleven of the twelve of them were ready to convict, but one lone juror refused to vote “guilty” on 23 of the charges.

According to ABC News, juror Erik Sarnello identified a female juror as the one holdout, and told the AP that she “just didn’t see what we all saw” on charges he called “obvious.” NPR spoke to another juror, Steven Wlodek, who confessed that he felt the jury had “let the people of the state down,” as he felt “there was guilt on more than three-quarters of the counts.” He also cited the one juror. A third juror, Ralph Schindler, told the Chicago News Cooperative that the deadlock was “clear from the start,” and that he would have preferred continued deliberations: “There were people, myself included, yesterday who were willing to stay and work longer if the group felt that we were able to achieve consensus… but the majority of the group felt that we had exhausted all possibilities of reaching an agreement.”

The jury foreman, however, James Matsumoto said there was on single holdout on every charge and described the behavior among the jurors as “respectful.” He was also quick to point out to ABC News that he voted “guilty” on every single charge. Whether or not there was only one juror between Blagojevich and certain jail time, however, Judge James Zagel has already promised a round two, indicating that it is “absolutely” his intention to retry the case to add to what could potentially be up to five years in jail for Blagojevich so far– a charge he has already promised to appeal and vehemently denied yesterday.