Sentence Stands for Former Ill. Gov. Blagojevich
"My life is in ruins. ... I have nobody to blame but myself for my stupidity."
Rod Blagojevich, pleading for mercy at his sentencing, Dec. 7, 2011
"Every governor, even our worst, helps someone. ... Very few criminals are all bad. ... I am more concerned with the occasions when you wanted to use your powers to do things that were only good for yourself."
U.S. District Judge James Zagel, sentencing Blagojevich to 14 years in prison
They will meet again Tuesday, this time via videoconferencing the felonious and defrocked governor doing time below Colorado mountains, and the judge who decided there should be no more cushy gentlemen"s sentences for gentlemen guilty of blatant public corruption.
Four-plus years into that sentence, Rod Blagojevich will want to dwell Tuesday on letters that fellow inmates have written to Zagel, encouraging a sentence reduction for "the Gov," as they call him. The testimonials relate how U.S. Bureau of Prisons inmate 40892-424 "was my teacher in the GED class." How he encouraged prisoners, telling them, "If I could be Governor, some of you guys could be President." How, at meetings of fellow Christians, "His talks are mostly about people in history that have fallen but went on to do good things. He would tell us to learn from those examples." How Blagojevich is so helpful and nice that "it"s hard to imagine him being on the wrong side of the law."
Blagojevich won"t want to dwell, though, on the Chicago appellate court ruling that, a year ago, sent his case back to Zagel for resentencing. The appellate judges did vacate Blagojevich"s conviction on five of his 18 felonies. But they also empowered Zagel to give him a shorter prison term or a longer one.
The convict"s apologists want the rest of us to focus on those five counts, as if tossing them sorta, kinda makes him less guilty. As if Blagojevich as Gerald Ford said of Richard Nixon in pardoning him has suffered enough. But Illinoisans who do their homework know better:
The appellate judges vacated the five counts over a technicality involving jury instructions, not because of innocence. In fact, they said that prosecutors could re-try Blagojevich on those counts. That the evidence against him at trial was sufficient to convict him. That although Zagel had sentenced Blagojevich to 14 years, his felonies qualified for a range of 30 years to life. That vacating five counts doesn"t reduce that range. That a 14-year sentence might just be too light: "Any error in the guidelines calculation," the judges said, "went in Blagojevich"s favor."
In other words, Blagojevich is entitled to a new sentence, not a lesser sentence. The last of the opinion"s 23 pages said that, "It is not possible to call 168 months unlawfully high for Blagojevich"s crimes, but the district judge should consider on remand whether it is the most appropriate sentence."
So Zagel can do as he wishes.
We won"t intrude on his reverie. We do hope he re-reads his own words of the day he first sentenced Blagojevich. We wrote at the time of how Zagel, speaking at high noon, focused on the much-abused people of Illinois, who have watched four of their last 10 governors frog-marched to federal prisons. By giving Blagojevich more than double the 61/2 years given the preceding corrupt governor, George Ryan, Zagel made corruption a more serious crime than it previously had been in Illinois. He essentially told every other judge who hears these cases that, to curb this crime, penalties need to rise. Giving Blagojevich 14 years was a rigorous precedent on which future judges could, and should, sentence the next crooked Illinois pols.
Zagel"s most searing words attested to Blagojevich"s self-imposed, life-long penalty: If citizens have placed their public trust in you, then you can do to your life and your loved ones what this criminal freely chose to do to his. Corruption doesn"t just happen; people who may have fine attributes, impressive resumes and substantial accomplishments make it happen. Exemplary fathers and mothers, career professionals, officials who have done many good things for the people they serve (or serve time with) these otherwise upstanding folks, not just thieving mopes, drive the Illinois culture of political sleaze.
The harm Blagojevich caused, Zagel said, isn"t quantified in dollars. "The harm is the erosion of public trust in government." When a governor goes bad, he damages a system that relies on the willing participation of its citizens. "You," Zagel stated, "did that damage."
The prisoners" letters, by contrast, confer nobility. One recurring theme: Blagojevich, a humble man, "still believes in our American legal system." "He still expresses his belief in our legal system." "He maintains unwavering belief and honor in our judicial system." And generic advice from one inmate to the judge: "By the way, the sentences of most all of us serving time for nonviolent victimless crimes are way, way, overkill."
In letter after letter, inmates attest that although the Gov is wrongly incarcerated, he has faith that, on Tuesday, Judge Zagel will do the right thing.
So do we.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-rod-blagojevich-sentence-edit-20160805-story.html
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