When Blago Takes the Stand

Come on babe, why don’t we paint the town; and all that jazz!
I’m gonna rouge my knees and roll my stockings down; and all that jazz!
Start the car, I know a whoopee spot; Where the gin is cold, but the piano’s hot!
It’s just a noisy hall; where there’s a nightly brawl
And all… that… jazz…

It’s really a great day to be stuck in Chicago. The weather is pleasant today but not sweltering. The Cubbies have a home game. And former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich will take the stand in his own defense. Add in a deep dish pizza and a taping of Oprah, and you could have the full Chicago experience all in one day.

So what can we expect from the governor turned “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant turned criminal defendant?

The WSJ Law Blog has some ideas:

Over the course of the past six weeks, prosecutors have played a series of secretly recorded conversations of Blagojevich that are widely believed to make him sound crass, greedy and eager to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama.

Blagojevich has to make the jury believe those conversations were political posturing and that he had no intention of following through on them.

“This has to be the performance of his life,” said Leonard Cavise, a law professor at DePaul University. “We’ve never seen that kind of performance from him before.”

Oh that’s right, we’re talking about Rod Blagojevich. Nobody knows what to expect.

Sponsored

Usually lawyers encourage defendants to avoid taking the stand in their own defense. But come on, this is Blago. You could shoot the guy with an elephant tranquilizer and he’d keep talking. And since the government has so many nails in his coffin that Pai Mei wouldn’t be able to punch out of it, what’s the harm?

If the jury finds Blagojevich guilty and the judge believes he lied on the stand, the testimony could lead to a longer sentence, said Dean Polales, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney. Still, Polales said he saw no reason why he shouldn’t take the stand.

“Given the apparent strength of the government’s case, there’s no reason the defendant shouldn’t testify,” Polales said. “He’s the only one who can say for certain what was going on in his mind at the time of the alleged offense.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press was able to find unnamed experts who seem to think that Blagojevich is a regular person:

It is rare and risky for defendants in federal trials to testify in their own defense. Experts say Rod Blagojevich would need to abandon his usual cockiness, humble himself, and not allow himself to be goaded.

Fat. Chance.

Sponsored

In any event, if anybody out there makes it into the courtroom today, let us know. We could totally use some live Twitter updates about His Hairness.

Blago to Take Stand: Will He Give ‘Performance of His Life’? [WSJ Law Blog]
Blagojevich expected to testify after his brother [Associated Press]