Happens to lots of people all the time. Presumably one of the prime reasons people do not commit crimes or otherwise behave in very poor ways that would threaten their job is a responsibility they feel towards their family. It is one thing to engage in illegal or unethical behavior when it is just you. It is another when you have your wife and kids’ well-being on the line too.
Give that I think it is just another indication of what a creep this guy is. His behavior all along was rather appalling. One would think upon becoming Governor of a state you’d become less grasping but it seems to have just whetted his appetite to get more.
I also should add that while I am not overly familiar with her from what I hear Blago’s wife is quite a piece of work in her own right. Do not have visions of some poor, suffering wife done in by her husband. She’s as grasping as he is from what I can tell.
The only ones to feel sorry for here are the children. Both for what their parents have done as well as being unlucky enough to have those two as parents in the first place.
Don’t be silly. In bench trials the judge is obligated to follow already specified rules of evidence and procedure, either criminal or civil as the case may be. In bench trials the judge does not get to set the rules and then rule on the facts.
Yes. It’s a political process. But it’s not really done… though in the past we had folks in the Board demanding why couldn’t they do just that, and saying that there was too much trial procedure,
If the Senate of the state of Illinois wanted to, it could simply vote on the conviction without trial, without witnesses, without anything.
In the case of this trial, the “defendant” chose deliberately not to participate, knowing as he did that his participation would be meaningless. Of course, one can choose to believe that this is because he’s really guilty of the charges he’s being investigated for. Or one can believe that he didn’t want to bother trying to establish his “innocence” in front of people who were determined not to believe him no matter what he or others said.
We’ll have a better idea when the criminal case moves forward, if it ever does.
But “fairness” doesn’t enter into the equation. A political process is rarely “fair.”
I think a better solution would be to amend the Illinois impeachment statute to require that a person could only be impeached after he/she was convicted of a felony in a court of competent jurisdiction, and to require that the state legislature adopt rules for procedure and evidence in impeachment trials at the beginning of each session, rather than on an ad hoc basis. IMHO YMMV.
The two problems I see with this off the top of my head are:
(1) In the case of Blagojevich, it may be a year or more before the criminal case is concluded. Then you have the potential for appeals all the way up to the US Supreme Court. If a guy deserves impeaching, you’re potentially looking at year(s) before you can do it.
(2) It hobbles the state government by making it dependant upon the federal government to decide when the state may eject a corrupt governor. If the entire state (give or take) feels that a governor is unfit to serve, should the state have to wait for permission from Washington DC before they can act on it? I’m not a huge states’ rights advocate but even I feel very uncomfortable with that.
Those are reasonable arguments but (1) there’s no reason criminal cases of public officials cannot be expedited and (2) there’s no reason the state’s own law enforcement officials cannot do the prosecuting, if necessary. That may pose a problem if a state police official is the target of the impeachment, of course, but the statute could allow for a special prosecutor in that that case.
First off if the Governor was convicted of a felony I do not think there would be any need for impeachment. In Illinois you could get the State Supreme Court to declare the Governor unfit and that is that (I cannot imagine the court saying the Governor could perform his duties adequately from a prison cell).
Second, and more importantly, an impeachment is a political tool, not a legal one even if they do sort of comport themselves in a legalistic fashion. You can imagine many cases where a Governor might need to be gotten rid of without the Governor actually committing a crime. Maybe he has chronic flatulence and is an embarrassment to the state because he is farting continuously on TV and when meeting dignitaries and so on.
As has been noted on threads about impeaching the US President they can impeach/convict for pretty much anything at all. Of course they only really bother when there is some apparent and compelling reason but there is nothing to stop them from impeaching if only because they decide they do not like his hair style (which in Blago’s case could easily be done).
I’m sure they often are. Still, it takes time to build a solid case – no prosecutor is going to want to blow the case by rushing it. And appeals all take time as well. And the defense is going to want to take their time as well. You’re not likely to expedite an 18 month trial down to a month or something.
Well, the reason is that Blagojevich was arrested for federal crimes meaning that the federal government & court system is the only party with jurisdiction over the case. At this point, you’ve gone from changing the state constitution to changing federal law.
He was fired by the ELECTED Senate. Presumably they were given an earful by their constituents. I would have certainly made my feeling known in the matter.
So you say, but I doubt it. As I said, this case could be expedited. The fact that Fitzgerald is dragging his feet (IMHO) doesn’t mean that the criminal prosecution could not be done. Criminal defendants frequently try to drag out proceedings but there’s no reason the court couldn’t make it go a lot faster, since prosecuting a public officer is obviously of the utmost public interest.
The Federal government is certainly not the only party with jurisdiction over potential corruption of a state official. Consider Illinois statute 720 ILCS 5/33‑1
Sections (d) and (e) seem to apply to now Mr. Blago.
As far as my recommended changes go, so what if I think both state and federal statutes and constitutions should be improved? Both of them look to be in need of great improvement to me.
I never said that they were. I said that Blagojevich was charged with federal crimes and therefore those crimes were under federal jurisdiction. Blagojevich was picked up by Fitzgerald’s investigation, not Lisa Madigan’s.
Unless you’re saying that state politicans should be immune to federal prosecution and it must be handled at the state level.
So nothing. But you started off saying that the state constitution should be amended and I was explaining why it wasn’t that easy.
I’d say Jophiel you’re the one who said that Blago could only be charged with federal crimes and not state ones, and I’d say that is incorrect. The fact that Blago is currently facing only federal charges does not preclude state charges too, as anyone who’s seen a turf battle on Law & Order well understands.
I never said that, and in fact have said the opposite, that the ex-governor could be charged with appropriate state crimes besides federal ones.
