United States v. Blagojevich

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Blagojevich was convicted of 18 crimes committed while he was Governor of Illinois and sentenced to 168 months’ imprisonment. In 2015, the Seventh Circuit vacated five of the convictions but affirmed the others and remanded. After the Supreme Court denied certiorari, the prosecutor announced that the five vacated charges would not be retried. For the remaining 13 convictions, the district court again imposed a sentence of 168 months, after determining that the Sentencing Guidelines recommend a term of 360-months-to-life, and making reductions that produced a final range of 151-188 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, acknowledging that the sentence was high for nonviolent crimes by a first-time offender. The court rejected arguments that the judge should have considered evidence of Blagojevich’s “extraordinary” rehabilitation while in prison; that the judge should have revised the sentence in light of the dismissal of the five vacated counts; and that the judge failed to address an argument about sentencing disparities. View "United States v. Blagojevich" on Justia Law