Legal Commentary

Retrying a criminal case after a mistrial is often a good bet for the government.  If the prosecutor knows how and why the jury split in the prior trial, it can adjust its game plan for the next.  Sometimes, the government presents additional witnesses, who can better tell the prosecution's story and corroborate witnesses whose testimony was questioned in prior trials. 

In other cases, the problem is one of complexity.  The government has presented too much evidence, and perhaps has charged the defendant with so many crimes that the jurors do not quite know how to proceed.  Apparently, that may have been the problem for the trial of Rod Blagojevich.  In cases like that, the best tactic might be to streamline the trial by bringing fewer charges and presenting less testimony.  

I would imagine that the streamlining approach is exactly the one that the United States Attorney's Office in Illinois will adopt when it retries Blagojevich.  Expect the trial to be shorter and the charges to be far more limited to the events surrounding the alleged sale of a Senate seat (the jury broke 11-1 on this count). Expect also that the government will push for an immediate trial date - the shorter the time lag, the better.

That leads to the obvious question: Should the government retry its case against Blagojevich?  The Washington Post has an editorial arguing against it, but I am not persuaded that a second trial is unwarranted.  The governor of the fifth largest state (by population) allegedly tried to sell a Senate seat for his own gain.  Despite the complexity of the case, 11 jurors concluded that Blagojevich was guilty of this count, and all jurors concluded that he lied to federal agents (which is why he was convicted on one count).  Assuming you believe that retrials are ever appropriate, isn't this exactly the type of case that the government should retry?