Jurors in the corruption trial of ex-House speaker Michael Madigan remained silent Monday, ending their ninth day of deliberations without asking any questions or reaching a verdict.
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey, who is presiding over the Madigan case, is apparently preparing for the possibility that deliberations could stretch even longer. At a hearing Monday in a different case set to go to trial next week, he told attorneys that if Madigan jurors reach a verdict while the other trial is proceeding in his courtroom, they would have to pause those proceedings and read the Madigan verdict.
“It’s mostly hurry up and wait until we get a result,” Blakey said.
As of Monday afternoon, jurors had deliberated for more than 57 hours. They began their discussions on the afternoon of Jan. 29.
In an unusual move, attorneys for Madigan and his co-defendant, longtime lobbyist Michael McClain, filed a request Monday asking the judge to instruct jurors that, for the purposes of defining a “thing of value,” prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knew a salary was not “bona fide wages paid in the usual course of business” – that is, they must prove the defendant knew that salary was being paid due to a bribe.
The request followed an in-the-weeds question from jurors Friday. Their note asked whether part of the definition of “a thing of value” in their instructions regarding bribery charges also applies to the phrases “something of value” and “valuable thing” in their instructions on the wire fraud and travel act charges.
“This is an excellent question,” said U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang, on the bench in place of Judge John Robert Blakey, who Chang said was “absolutely unavoidably absent.”
In their note, jurors pointed out that in their instructions relating to four separate bribery counts, “bona fide” salary paid to someone “in the usual course of business” cannot qualify as “a thing of value.”
They wanted to know if “bona fide salary” could be considered a valuable thing for the purposes of the separate wire fraud and travel act counts.
Ultimately, after arguments from attorneys and a text-message discussion with Blakey, Chang said he would tell jurors that salary paid for jobs that were obtained via bribery is in fact considered a thing of value in the wire fraud and travel act charges.
He also said he would remind them to consider each count in the 23-count indictment separately.