Dear Judge Zagel, I Hate You: Letters Explain Why We Won't Get Juror's Names

By Karl Klockars in News on Jul 27, 2010 4:20PM

While yesterday afternoon's legal fireworks were the highlight of courtroom proceedings in the Blagojevich trial, Phil Rogers over at NBC5 brings us a bit of lunacy-related info that otherwise got overlooked. Everyone in the public eye gets their share of letters from people who could generously be called cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and yesterday Judge Zagel shared some of his.

In explaining his ruling on why he's not releasing the names of the jurors until after the trial is concluded, he introduced some of the letters and voice mails he's received over the course of the trial. They include a letter written on a counterfeit White House letterhead from "the President" stating that the "case is permanently closed," a woman claiming to be a judge (she thinks) as well as King of Japan who is owed $200k by Blago, and a voice mail transcript so profane it could very well be from the former Governor himself:

(expletive) you, Judge Zagel. You (expletive) (expletive) arrogant (expletive) (expletive) mother (expletive). (expletive) you, (expletive) you, James B. Zagel. (expletive) you.

A judge might be used to this kind of trickery or abuse, but your average juror wouldn't be - which is why he won't release their identities til' after the trial, claiming that ne'er-do-wells like "members of the general public, bloggers, and others" might try to influence their decisions. Damn those bloggers!

Our Investigative News Bureau (read: me with Sharpie pens) created an artists rendering of the counterfeited letterhead as best we could. Yes, it should be in crayon, we just didn't have any handy. That said, we'd love to see any courtroom sketch artist's version outdo ours. It really captures the spirit, if not the essence, no?