Three jurors selected so far to hear evidence in Madigan corruption trial

After a long day of questioning, the first three jurors were chosen Wednesday to hear evidence in the trial of Michael Madigan, the former Illinois House speaker now facing sweeping charges of corruption and bribery.

A former kindergarten teacher, an Amazon warehouse worker and a Southwest Side insurance underwriter all were selected for the panel on Wednesday, the first full day of jury selection.

Questioning is expected to continue at least through the end of the week, until a panel of 12 regular jurors and six alternates has been selected. Opening statements in the blockbuster case are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday.

Madigan, 82, once the enormously powerful speaker of the Illinois House, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise, scheming with utility giants ComEd and AT&T to put his cronies on contracts requiring little or no work and using his public position to drum up business for his private law firm.

Madigan and his co-defendant Michael McClain, 77, a former ComEd lobbyist and longtime confidant of Madigan’s, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

Dressed in a gray suit and purple tie, Madigan walked into the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse Wednesday morning without comment to reporters and news photographers. He sat at the defense table for nearly six hours, eyeglasses down on his nose and taking notes on a legal pad as potential jurors answered a slew of questions about their attitudes toward politicians, lobbyists and Illinois government.

McClain, who had not been to the courthouse since his conviction in May 2023 in the related “ComEd Four” bribery case, sat at a table behind Madigan for most of the proceedings. The two longtime friends only seemed to acknowledge each other once in the courtroom, when, after a break, Madigan could be seen offering a half-wave, which McClain returned with a smile.

After court recessed for the day, Madigan stopped and talked briefly with McClain’s wife, Cinda, while McClain waited out of earshot.

The selection process got off to a sluggish start, with only five potential jurors questioned in the morning session. Roughly 17 people were kicked off the panel before being questioned in-depth, because attorneys agreed that their answers to a written questionnaire should disqualify them.

“Folks expressed animus toward politicians as well as towards defendants in particular,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu said in court. “… There’s a large number that falls into that category.”

Todd Pugh, who represents Madigan, told the judge they also agreed to boot jurors who had negative impressions of prosecutors and federal agents, as well as people who simply didn’t answer many of the questions.

One woman, a part-time Brookfield Zoo employee, was stricken for cause at the request of Madigan’s attorneys after she revealed her husband is a longtime Tribune subscriber. Even though she said she focused more on the lifestyle pages, Pugh pointed out that her potential exposure to the newspaper’s “incredibly in-depth” coverage of the Madigan investigation was a concern.

By the end of the day, two men and a woman had been selected to serve on the jury.

The woman, identified publicly only as Juror 2, is a former kindergarten teacher who now works as a professional development coordinator for schools. She enjoys romance novels and said she has heard about the Madigan case only in passing.

Juror 6, an Amazon warehouse employee who appeared to be in his 20s, said he loved the movie “West Side Story” and has been part of multiple dance companies. He said he doesn’t “like the idea of what lobbyists get into,” but would not let that keep him from making a rational decision in the case.

Both those jurors said they wanted to be on the jury.

The third person selected, Juror 16, said flat-out he did not want to participate, but he was selected anyway. An insurance underwriter with three school-age kids, he grew up in the 19th Ward and said he knows Ald. Matt O’Shea but is not particularly political. He said he most recently went to O’Shea’s office for a block party permit.

Asked if it was successful, the juror replied, “It was a good party.”

Among the other potential jurors questioned Wednesday was a man who had put on his questionnaire that lobbyists “tend to be crooked” and that he “always thought Madigan was crooked when he was speaker of the House.”

“I don’t trust any politician, truthfully,” he said in court.

Another prospective juror who was booted had written on her questionnaire that she felt “the judicial system can rely more on the personal values of judges and the ability of defendants to afford good attorneys.”

Madigan and McClain’s high-priced attorneys jumped at that answer, asking her repeatedly whether she thought she could be fair despite that point of view.

She said she thought she could be impartial, but could not be “100%” sure.

After her questioning, the defense objected to her inclusion on the jury, and U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey removed her from consideration over prosecutors’ objection.

Earlier in the day, Blakey told attorneys that at their current pace, it would take three and a half weeks to get through all of the more than 150 possible jurors in the pool.

“I will not rush anybody. The jury selection will take as long as it needs to take,” Blakey said.

The trial will likely stretch into December.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan arrives at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Oct. 9, 2024. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

Jury selection has been a subject of much interest in pretrial hearings. Defense attorneys, citing years of attack ads by Republicans and enormous pretrial publicity, wanted to hire a company to research jurors’ internet presences so lawyers could screen for signs of bias. Blakey rejected that request.

However, during the jury selection period, attorneys will be allowed to do basic internet searches about the prospective jurors and their public social media postings.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com