When juries rule the way we would have, they’re wise. When they don’t, they’re crazy. Last week one Chicago jury declared 15th Ward alderman Virgil Jones guilty of accepting $7,000 in bribes from a government mole, finding it unlikely that Jones would accept thousands of dollars in legitimate campaign contributions inside a rolled-up newspaper. Another jury acquitted former state senator Miguel Santiago of being a ghost payroller in the county treasurer’s office, finding it believable that Santiago could monitor relevant state legislation for the treasurer for four and a half years without jotting down a single note. As one juror told reporters afterward, “We agree that he did little or no work, but again we feel he did what he was told to do and he thought that was his job.” Is the jury still out on juries? Compare the two cases, and you be the judge.
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$7,000 in bribes from government mole John Christopher to let Christopher run a rock-crushing operation in Jones’s ward.
LAME EXCUSES
Santiago attorney Edward Genson, on the fact that prosecutors didn’t call Rosewell to testify: “They would have brought him in on a stretcher if they thought he would have helped them.”
Guilty.
