Team Blago Plans SCOTUS Appeal To Delay Trial

By Marcus Gilmer in News on May 17, 2010 5:40PM

With every other attempt to delay his trial shot down, attorneys for former governor Rod Blagojevich are taking their case straight to the top: the Supreme Court of the United States. Team Blago wants the case to wait until the SCOTUS rules on a few cases involving the honest services law, something that should happen sometime in June.

Defense attorney Sam Adam told reporters Monday that he plans to file such a request on Tuesday.

Adam says Blagojevich's attorneys aren't expecting a hearing before the high court. He says they just want a temporary order to delay the trial until the high court rules on the constitutionality of the federal law that bars officials from depriving taxpayers of honest services. That ruling is expected in June.

Some of the original charges against Blagojevich involve said honest services law; in fact, it was a possible ruling on the law that inspired the feds to re-indict Blago a few months ago to cover their bases. Last week, a federal appeals court turned down a similar request from Blago's lawyers, ruling there's still plenty there in the case on which the SCOTUS ruling would have no effect.