Why didn't Illinois allow Gov. Rod Blagojevich a fair trial to prove his innocence?

This is a very scary precedent that they would not allow this Governor to bring in witnesses to his impeachment trial to prove his innocence, violating the basic fundamental rights of this Governor entitled to the American Public.





How could they not allow him to being in witnesses, challenge false accusation, and prove against wrong things that they said Blagojevich did???? There were other people involved in the knowledge of the story of what happened and they got a pass and this Blagojevich was scapegoated, for all I know because he has a Chicago mob-style accent.





When I think about it, the guy never did get a fair spin on his trial. I listened to the recorded tapes and it seems like the soundbites were taken out of context and it still seems VERY unclear if he's referring to selling Obama's seat or something exclusive or more expansive than what he's being accused of.





The 6th Amendment Rights granted to all Americans is the Rights of the Accused and in the House and Senate Trial, Blagojevich did not have exercise to this. He was a prosecution lawyer before he was a Governor and he knows how the legal process works and it needs to be known what the Illinois Legislature did to him was completely unconstitutional and should not have even been called a trial.





With Blagojevich not present during his impeachment trial for obvious reasons, not because of the evidence presented or observed, he was impeached and removed by nearly EVERY Illinois state legislature and state Senator, and probably had more to do with his unpopularity in that he vetoed a lot of things the state legislatures did not like. So on grounds that had little at all to do with Obama's Senate seat, they exercised a loophole to push Blagojevich out of the Gov spot....





Meanwhile in the criminal trial they could not convict him of ANY of the 23 counts he was guilty of except "lying to investigators" which is a bit silly because he shouldn't even have to talk to investigators without an attorney just like you don't have to confront the police and can plead the 5th. The prosecution agreed they did not prove his guilt at all in the criminal trial, agreed there was a mistrial conducted, and his trial is rescheduled now again....





my point is he was punished from his job as Governor of Illinois and it's already too late, and years later his innocence will be proved. I feel really bad for this Governor and his wife. He did do a lot of good things for the state of Illinois. Among these things, he found ways to provide healthcare for Illinois residents and Cervic Cancer treatments, without raising taxes on the middle class workers by working around the system that the Illinois Legislatures tried to pass.





Do you agree this guy got a bad end of the stick?|||do the crime, do the time.|||None of this is true.|||Although he is quite like-able and did not commit a horrific crime, at the end of the day, he is still guilty. Blajo has dodged a lot of bullets and benefited from his high profile status, he is as guilty as the Clintons, in their numerous scandals and abuses of power.|||Trials are for proving guilt, not innocence. He was tried and the jury was hung.





He's already innocent because they didn't prove him guilty.





Why should we spend more money?|||no he's a criminal|||Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.