Supreme Court won't hear appeal by former Illinois governor Blagojevich
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich failed on Monday to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to review his corruption convictions.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected Blagojevich’s cert request (PDF), which had argued there was no clear line among the lower courts between legal and illegal trading of political favors, report the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.
The cert petition argues that extortion cases involving solicitation of campaign contributions should require an explicit promise to perform an official act. The petition also argued that the Supreme Court should clarify that extortion, bribery and honest services fraud are specific-intent crimes subject to a good faith defense.
Blagojevich is serving a 14-year federal sentence. Last July, a federal appeals court tossed five extortion convictions that were based on Blagojevich’s attempt to sell Barack Obama’ s former Senate seat. The court said jury instructions failed to differentiate between an illegal sale of the seat and a legal offer to trade the seat for a Cabinet position. The appeals court upheld convictions on 13 other counts.
The appeals court had ordered resentencing, which has not yet been scheduled.
