Blagojevich Mostly Hung Jury

There was a mostly hung jury in Blagojevich's criminal trial. The sole conviction was for the non-crime of "lying to an FBI agent". The State legal system is so corrupt that Blagojevich seems like the victim.

Like all State politicians, Blagojevich is a parasite. He may have been unfairly singled out, because he refused to name Obama's choice as replacement senator from Illinois. Blagojevich's defense is "I'm doing what everyone else is doing!"

It is hypocritical for State parasites to single out Blagojevich as corrupt, when they're just as bad or worse. Now that Blagojevich has been publicly shamed, a conviction in a sham trial reinforces the legitimacy of the State.

The reasoning is "Blagojevich was corrupt and got caught and convicted. Therefore, other politicians are not corrupt." It's a very interesting logical fallacy. It's similar to "If A then B, B, therefore A."

There are three interesting points about the Blagojevich hung jury.

1. The rules for hung juries are biased against criminal defendants.
2. The sole conviction, "lying to an FBI agent", is not a real crime. State thugs use this charge to trap and convict people.
3. On some charges, one woman was the sole holdout for acquittal. The mainstream media is denouncing her as an evil woman who prevented "justice". The mainstream media suggests it was 11-1 on all counts, but on many counts there were multiple "not guilty" votes. (In a Federal criminal trial, is the jury vote tally part of the official trial record?)
   

The rules for criminal trials are heavily stacked against defendants. One example is the treatment of hung juries.

The official lie is "If there's reasonable doubt, then the jurors should vote acquit." In a criminal trial, a hung jury should be considered proof of reasonable doubt. Unfortunately, that isn't the way State "justice" works. If the vote to acquit isn't unanimous, then the State prosecutor gets a mulligan and may try again.

Even if the vote to acquit is unanimous, the State prosecutor might find another crime to charge you with. A common trick is "Separate trials is state court and Federal court, for the same action."

In the re-trial, the defendant and his lawyer are barred from mentioning that there was a previous mistrial. That is unfair to the defendant. Of course, prospective Blagojevich re-trial jurors will know about the previous hung jury unless they're totally clueless. The mainstream media is spinning "If only for that one scumbag holdout, Blagojevich would have been convicted!"

Blagojevich is broke now. He spent all his money on his first trial. The State prosecutor has a virtually unlimited budget. Blagojevich has already been publicly shamed and disgraced. A conviction emphasizes the legitimacy of the State. At this point "Get a conviction!" is important, because otherwise it'll be politically embarrassing.

Blagojevich may be jailed after his first conviction. The will prevent him from earning money to pay for legal expenses. However, Blagojevich is currently out on bail.

Most State insiders set up trusts for their wife and children. I don't know if Blagojevich has actually done this. Blagojevich may have protected hidden assets.

Typically, State thugs freeze your assets, when they charge you with a crime. The claim is "Your assets are the proceeds of criminal activity." However, this prevents the victim from hiring a lawyer to defend himself.

Blagojevich will already spend 5 years in jail for the sole conviction. The prosecutor must seek a retrial, just to make a political point.

The maximum sentence for that one conviction is 5 years in jail. The judge will probably impose the maximum. When imposing the sentence, the judge may consider crimes for which Blagojevich was accused, but not convicted. The judge has the discretion to say "Blagojevich is such a scumbag that I'm imposing a harsher sentence than what the sentencing guidelines say!"

One article said "The prosecutor is supposed to always win! What happened? US attorney/prosecutor Fitzgerald must be really incompetent! Lolz! He's not getting a promotion!" It's a professional embarrassment for the prosecutor, that the jury was hung.

Fitzgerald is supposed to be a hot up-and-coming State prosecutor/parasite. He was given the Blagojevich prosecution so he could be the hero. It was supposed to be a slam-dunk easy conviction. After the conviction, Fitzgerald was supposed to go on TV saying "Hooray for the State! I'm so awesome!"

The Blagojevich prosecution is a self-aggrandizement opportunity for the prosecutor. Why is Fitzgerald going on TV and giving interviews?

Prosecutors are promoted based on the number of convictions they get. That creates a perverse incentive for prosecutors. That leads to "justice" instead of justice.

Why is a prosecutor's goal is "Get a conviction no matter what!"? The prosecutor's goal should be "Ensure a fair outcome." After a hung jury or acquittal, the prosecutor should not be angry; he should say "I guess there was insufficient proof."

Some prosecutors will withhold evidence that is beneficial to the defendant, to maximize the chance of conviction. The corrupt legal system has said "It's OK for prosecutors to do this. The prosecutor is protected by sovereign immunity."

Second, "lying to a policeman" is not a real crime. That "crime" assumes the State thug's authority is legitimate in the first place.

Norm Pattis had a good article on this.

Just the other day I learned of a prosecution of a man for making a false statement based on the following facts: The FBI thought a man disposed to take bribes. Two agents dressed up and pretended to be organized crime figures. They approached the target and offered him cash to do the wrong thing. The man declined to take the cash. So much for that theory of prosecution.

As the agents left the meeting, they told the man to be sure to deny meeting with them if the feds ever came calling.

Sure enough, two new agents, this time proudly displaying their FBI badge, showed up at the man's house. They asked whether the man had ever met with two men who had offered him a bribe. The man denied the meeting; he lied, in other words. Bingo! Now the fellow is prosecuted for making a false statement to federal agents. There is something inherently sleazy about this.

Summarizing, undercover FBI agent A pretends to be a criminal. He asks the victim to commit crime X. FBI agent A says or implies "I'll kill you and your family if you tell anyone."

FBI agent B shows his badge to the victim. He asks "Did anyone ever ask you to do X?" The victim answers "no", and now he's guilty of "lying to an FBI agent"!!

This emphasizes an important point "DON'T EVER TALK TO THE POLICE!!" I don't know if I'd be able to hold out, if falsely charged with a crime and detained for hours. I'd be tempted to convince the police that they're scumbags. However, maybe I'd be better of just sitting there quietly. A policeman, especially for political non-crime, has been pro-State brainwashed to ignore the defendant's point of view, when he says he is being improperly prosecuted.

The police/FBI are allowed to lie to you. Even when police are caught committing perjury, they almost always get away with it. However, lying to the police/FBI is treated as a serious crime. That's an unfair double standard.

FBI agents will *NEVER* allow you to record your conversation. They will testify/testily based on notes made during or after the meeting. That's unfair Police State tactics.

Ironically, Blagojevich's sole conviction was for a conversation that was *NOT* taped. After all those wiretaps, the sole conviction was based on notes an FBI agent made of a conversation in 2005.

If Blagojevich lied to the FBI in 2005, then why did the FBI wait until 2008 to prosecute him? Were they holding it in reserve, to use against him later?

Martha Stewart was not convicted of security fraud, but rather for lying to investigators about it. Blagojevich was not convicted for his alleged serious crimes. Why would anyone ever talk to the FBI?

The actual lie seems pretty stupid. Blagojevich lied about "I don't track who donates to my campaign." and "I don't let campaign contributions affect legislative decisions." Can any politician say that and really mean it?

As I mentioned before, "cop and lawyer" TV shows are an evil fnord promoting the police. An innocent person cooperates, and the police let him go. A guilty person refuses to cooperate, but the police catch him anyway. It's hard to refuse to talk with the police or FBI. You might think "I'm not a criminal!" The law is so vague that anyone can be arrested for anything. It's tempting to try to talk the police out of arresting you, but that's probably a losing strategy.

Once State thugs have decided to kidnap and torture you, you're already SOL. From personal experience, I was unable to convince psychiatric emergency room murderers "I don't need to be hospitalized! Please let me go!" Your psychiatrist and therapist really should give you a Miranda warning.

I don't know what I would actually do, if the police decided to kidnap and torture me. If you keep silent, the police can just keep you there or look for other things to prosecute you with. If you cooperate, then any mistake you make can be held against you later. Police have no obligation to discuss an entire conversation; they can quote you out of context.

If Blagojevich had refused to cooperate in 2005, he might have been prosecuted right then. He probably thought that he should cooperate with the FBI. That was a mistake. He probably really believed that his campaign fundraising was in compliance with really complicated campaign finance law. There probably is some law saying "campaign contributions must be segregated".

Third, the mainstream media is loudly denouncing the sole holdout. Did she prevent justice? Did she save an innocent person from a long prison term? You can't be sure which. She may have prevented justice, or she may have prevented "justice". There's a reason for the "unanimous verdict required to convict" rule.

The mainstream media is also misrepresenting the jury vote. On some counts, there was one lone holdout. On some counts, there were multiple "not guilty" votes. For Robert Blagojevich, the ex-governor's brother and codefendant, the vote allegedly was 9-3 favoring acquittal. The prosecutors also get a mulligan for Robert Blagojevich, even though a majority of jurors voted to acquit.

The one "guilty" verdict will lead to 5+ years in jail for Blagojevich. The holdout juror may not have realized this. If you're attempting "jury nullification", you have to vote "not guilty" on all charges! She may have voted guilty on one count as a compromise. Some people say that the Blagojevich verdict is an example of "jury nullification".

Why should I be willing to pay the cost of Blagojevich's trial and imprisonment, via higher taxes? You might say "So what, $0.10?" When you multiply by the cost of *ALL* State abuses, then it's a serious problem.

It seems that Blagojevich was unfairly singled out for prosecution, because he refused to cooperate with President Obama. Blagojevich refused to nominate Obama's choice as replacement senator, unless it was for a big favor. Every politician trades favors.

The State legal system is so corrupt that Blagojevich seems like the victim.

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After finishing this draft, I saw Blagojevich on the Monday 8/23/10 episode of "The Daily Show". Jon Stewart was heavily pushing the State line "Blagojevich is a scumbag who deserves to go to jail." The interview was heavily edited. I didn't watch the unedited version.

I was offended that Jon Stewart was so eager to push "Blagojevich scumbag!" Jon Stewart should have been at least somewhat sympathetic to "This is unfair malicious prosecution!" Jon Stewart was totally one-sided pro-State trolling.

Jon Stewart is a good monkey who dances for his corporate masters.

I also was offended by the guest on Monday 8/23/10 on The Colbert Report. It was an interview on UFOs, where the guest suggested "UFOs are aliens." I doubt that. Super-advanced aliens would probably not need an actual physical presence. My "conspiracy spider sense" was tingling. My reaction was "She's covering up that UFOs are a suppressed hidden technology." Of course, the guest never considered such a possibility. Otherwise, she wouldn't be an effective shill for the State.

That's very weird. No mainstream media discussion of UFOs suggests "This is a suppressed hidden technology." The guess always is "Maybe it's aliens." The "alien" explanation is forwarded at the expense of "suppressed technology".

It seems really disingenuous, that a mainstream media UFO researcher *NEVER* makes the "suppressed technology" suggestion. It's intellectually dishonest in the same sense that John Krakauer didn't suggest "Pat Tillman was assassinated!"

There's a lot of suspicious stuff regarding UFOs and Zero Point Energy. There's enough stuff for me to seriously consider "This might be a suppressed technology." No single story is convincing, but the whole body of work is *VERY* suspicious.