Potential jurors report for Madigan trial, attorneys appear in court

(The Center Square) – Jury selection is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning in the bribery and racketeering trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Potential jurors reported to court Tuesday morning and filled out questionnaires.

United States of America v. Madigan et al is being held at the Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse in Chicago.

Attorneys appeared in Courtroom 1203 on Tuesday afternoon to discuss pretrial issues after a schedule change. Madigan and co-defendant Michael McClain did not appear in court Tuesday, but both are expected to be in Courtroom 1203 on Wednesday morning.

Madigan is charged with 23 counts of bribery, racketeering and official misconduct.

Judge John Robert Blakey gave instructions to prosecutors and defense attorneys on Tuesday. The judge also answered several pretrial issues raised by attorneys over procedural matters.

St. Xavier University Professor David Parker said jury selection should take about four days.

“Jury selection, I think there were several thousand going out. I think there were more than a thousand jury summons. They narrowed it down to about 180 people,” Parker explained.

Blakey said Tuesday afternoon that jury selection proceedings would be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday with a 30-minute break for lunch each day.

Parker said the trial itself likely won’t end before mid-December.

“The trial is anticipated to take about ten weeks, with over 50 witnesses, maybe,” Parker said.

Parker said Madigan’s attorneys tried to get the charges dropped before the trial because they said his acts did not constitute bribery.

“They were going back and arguing what he had done. Early on, he was just saying, ‘This is just business as usual. I was just doing favors for friends and ComEd and everybody else’,” Parker noted.

Earlier this year, in a case involving former Portage, Indiana Mayor James Snyder, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to accept a gratuity for previous acts.

The 82-year-old Madigan served in the Illinois House from 1971 to 2021. He was speaker for all but two years between 1983 and 2021.

Madigan chaired the Democratic Party of Illinois from 1998 to 2021.