Madigan trial set to resume next week, but judge and lawyers still struggling with definition of 'corruption'

The trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan may be heading into its final stretch this month, but there’s still much work to do before jurors can finally begin considering the mountain of evidence that’s been presented to them since late October.

Perhaps most crucially, U.S. District Judge John Blakey and lawyers in the case must finalize more than 100 pages of instructions that will be read to the jury before it deliberates. That means grappling with a dispute that made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court last spring.

What does the word “corruptly” mean?

U.S. Supreme Court justices zeroed in on that very question when they heard oral arguments last April in the corruption case against former Portage, Indiana, Mayor James Snyder — the same case that triggered a six-month delay in Madigan’s trial.

The justices grilled a government lawyer for a clearer definition of the term, with Justice Neil Gorsuch even asking at one point, “Is it a sin? Are we now talking about … a venial sin? Or does it have to be a mortal one?”

The high court ultimately ruled that a federal bribery law aimed at state and local officials does not also criminalize after-the-fact rewards known as “gratuities.” But it did not define the word “corruptly,” despite the justices’ apparent fascination with the term and its role in the law.

That left Blakey, federal prosecutors and defense attorneys arguing about the word all over again Thursday back in Chicago, as they worked their way through jury instructions in Madigan’s case.

Testimony in the trial is set to resume Monday after a two-week holiday break. Madigan’s attorneys were calling witnesses when the trial paused Dec. 19. They’ve since signaled they want to call a representative of Madigan’s tax appeals law firm to the stand, as well as an accountant for former Ald. Danny Solis, who wore a wire against Madigan for the FBI.

Though jurors had previously been expected to return to the courtroom this week, the lawyers’ work on the instructions took longer than expected. That delay, combined with the National Day of Mourning for the late President Jimmy Carter that will close the courthouse Jan. 9, means closing arguments in Madigan’s trial may not begin until the week of Jan. 13.

Madigan and his longtime ally Michael McClain are on trial for a racketeering conspiracy. Madigan is accused of leading a criminal enterprise designed to enhance his political power and reward his allies and associates, with McClain acting as his agent.

Testimony in the trial began Oct. 22.

The case also involves claims of bribery, and seven of the 23 counts in Madigan’s indictment are tied to the law considered by the Supreme Court. It applies to any state or local government agent who “corruptly solicits … anything of value … intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business” worth $5,000 or more.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu argued that jurors should be told someone acts corruptly when they do so with an understanding that doing so is “wrongful or unlawful.” But Madigan attorney Lari Dierks countered the word should be defined as “acting with knowledge the person’s conduct is unlawful.”

Using the word “wrongful,” Dierks said, risks “sweeping in innocent conduct” through the “parade of horribles that could come from an individual juror’s determination of what may be wrongful.”

Her argument echoed the back-and-forth during the Supreme Court’s discussion last spring. At one point, she and Bhachu each acknowledged they’d personally attended that session. But Bhachu told the judge, “Lots of things happen in oral arguments that don’t end up in any court opinion.”

When it was his turn, Blakey pointed to 7th Circuit case law and concluded “corruptly” is “a factual awareness that the exchange is a bribe.” But he handed down no official ruling and cautioned that "everything I just said is not an opinion, it is a thought process.”

With that guidance, the judge told lawyers on each side to keep talking about the issue. He told them to let his staff know when they were ready to revisit that and other leftover arguments about the jury instructions.

The lawyers spent a total of about five hours inside Blakey’s courtroom Thursday discussing a draft of those instructions. Their back-and-forth offered potential insights into the arguments jurors could be hearing in the coming weeks.

For example, Dierks unsuccessfully sought a revision that would distinguish the difference between a defendant’s “association” with a criminal enterprise and that person “knowingly agreeing to join” a conspiracy.

She said it would allow for an argument that a person could be “engaged in the actions of helping people get jobs that were associated with a political organization” while not necessarily participating in the “alleged unlawful conspiracy.”

Later, she told the judge, "we are continuously focused on the knowledge to the defendant."