Ex-Virginia governor petitions Supreme Court

Attorneys for imprisoned former governor Rod Blagojevich have asked the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to place on hold the court’s own decision, rejecting the majority of Blagojevich’s appeal and sending the case back to the district court for resentencing.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit had requested the filing from Robert McDonnell’s wife to help its judges decide whether and how her case can be differentiated from her husband’s.

Blagojevich, 58, is serving a 14-year prison sentence at a federal prison in Colorado on convictions including his attempt to sell an appointment to President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat.

The appellate court vacated Blagojevich’s conviction on five counts and remanded the case to the trial judge for retrial or, if the government elects to drop the charges, resentencing.

Defense attorney Leonard Goodman, however, suggests that the Supreme Court might agree to a view that 7th Circuit judges did not agree with: That in each case of alleged corruption, Blagojevich was participating in legal, run-of-the-mill politicking.

But McDonnell’s attorneys filed an emergency application hours later to the Supreme Court, asking for a delay of the lower court’s decision or to let McDonnell remain free on bond while he makes his final appeal. And it’s a long shot. It accepts only around 80 cases a year out of more than 10,000 requests to take up a case, according to court data.

McDonnell’s wife, Maureen, is scheduled to appear before the appeals court in late October.

“Few politicians, who must raise campaign funds as part of their job, could survive the legal requirements imposed on Blagojevich”, Goodman said in his pitch to the full appeals court.

“I don’t think other judges on the court wanted to challenge the three judges’ original finding….”

In the filing Wednesday, Maureen McDonnell’s lawyers said they stood behind the arguments Robert and Maureen McDonnell both had raised, and said prosecutors hadn’t proven a conspiracy between the two. “‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know what I mean” can amount to extortion under the Hobbs Act, just as it can furnish the gist of a Monty Python sketch”, the judges wrote. But they said he didn’t cross it by asking for a Cabinet seat for himself. But that panel said “it is not possible to call 168 months of unlawfully high for Blagojevich’s crimes”. But it also said his original 14-year sentence might be considered fair even after subtracting the five overturned counts. McDonnell asked the court to state in writing that he could remain free while seeking Supreme Court review. “I am innocent of these charges and will petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a grant of bond”.