CHICAGO _ With unusual speed, a federal appeals court in Chicago on Friday once again upheld former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's corruption conviction and 14-year prison sentence just three days after holding oral argument on the case.
The terse, six-page opinion effectively slammed the door on Blagojevich's last real chance of either winning a new trial or reducing his time behind bars.
The rejection by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals leaves him with only a few options: Either request an "en banc" hearing before the entire 7th Circuit or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up his case.
Both are at best considered legal long shots � the 7th Circuit already rejected one request for an en banc hearing, and a petition to the Supreme Court last year went nowhere.
The former governor, who has already spent more than five years in prison, is scheduled to remain in custody until mid-2024, prison records show.
Reached by phone, Blagojevich's attorney, Leonard Goodman, called the ruling "incredibly sad and disappointing" and said Blagojevich's legal team would "review options." But he would not comment on what the next step might be.
The opinion released Friday morning came from the same panel of judges who ruled in 2015 that the ex-governor's sentence was reasonable _ Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne and Ilana Rovner.
The ruling, written by Easterbrook, roundly rejected Blagojevich's arguments that U.S. District Judge James Zagel failed to consider key factors in Blagojevich's rehabilitation in prison when he resentenced the former governor to the same 14-year term he'd handed down in 2011.
The opinion said Zagel had considered the glowing letters written from fellow inmates as well as other evidence of Blagojevich's good works in prison but found them unpersuasive.
"As with many discretionary subjects the fact that a judge could have ruled otherwise does not imply that the judge was compelled to rule otherwise," the opinion stated.
Blagojevich, 60, was convicted in 2011 of misusing his powers as governor in an array of wrongdoing, including most notably his attempts to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama after his 2008 election to the White House.
The conviction came less than a year after an initial trial ended with a jury deadlocked on all but one count of lying to the FBI, forcing the retrial.
In its first ruling in 2015, the 7th Circuit threw out five counts involving the Senate seat on technical grounds.
But the court tempered the small victory for Blagojevich by calling the evidence against him "overwhelming" and making it clear that the original was not out of bounds. Zagel's decision in August to resentence Blagojevich to the original 14 years means he's still slated to remain in prison until May 2024.
In oral arguments on Tuesday, Blagojevich's lawyers also argued that his convictions should be overturned, saying the jury in his second criminal trial was improperly instructed by Zagel on what constitutes bribery when it came to political wheeling and dealing.
But the 7th Circuit ruled Friday that Blagojevich's jury never had to question what constituted an "official act" because his attorneys never contended that appointing someone to a vacant senate seat, signing legislation or the the other activities at the center of the case were the official acts of the state's governor.
