_A version of this article ran in the “June 29, 2011”:https://www.dailyillini.com/index.php/article/2011/06/retrial_yields_shifting_tactics_in_court, edition of The Daily Illini._

Rod Blagojevich’s second trial finally ended this summer.

Convicted of 17 federal corruption charges on June 17, the verdict was in stark contrast with the first trial, where he was only convicted of lying to the FBI.

Blagojevich had spent 2 1/2 years professing his innocence on reality TV shows and later on the witness stand. His defense team had insisted that hours of FBI wiretap recordings were just the ramblings of a politician who liked to think out loud.

He faces up to 300 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines could reduce his time behind bars. The hearing to determine this sentence will be held Oct. 6. Two University law professors weighed in on the verdict and the changing tactics taken by the defense and prosecution between the trials.

Law professor Steven Beckett said he did not think Blagojevich could have won the trial no matter what he did because the evidence against him was overwhelming.

Beckett said Blagojevich’s lawyers probably counseled him to take a plea bargain, knowing the odds of acquittal were slim and hoping that he could get a reduced sentence.

“His personality is a little different, and his conception of the reality about the situation is probably much different than mine or much different than his lawyers’ might be,” he said.

“He might be a difficult client to advise.”

Even if the verdict was a foregone conclusion, it took the prosecution two trials to convict the former governor on more than one charge. The prosecution’s problem in the first trial, law professor Andrew Leipold said, was that its case was too complicated. For the second trial, the prosecution dropped some of the more complex charges, including racketeering, and left only charges the jury could easily understand.

Another reason the first trial ended in a deadlocked jury, Leipold said, could be that some of the jurors did not think Blagojevich did anything illegal.

“Ultimately, a big part of the case was about honesty, and perhaps some of the jurors thought that the governor had done some things that were maybe a little slippery but not illegal,” he said.

Another major difference between the trials was Blagojevich’s decision to testify at the second one.

“I think for the first trial, his attorneys knew that the cross examination would be very damaging to his position, and it would be a last resort before they had him testify,” Beckett said.

After the first trial, though, Beckett said he thinks the former governor’s lawyers thought testifying was the only way to get an acquittal.

“He hoped that his (testimony) would show that him on the tapes was just him thinking and talking,” Beckett said. “Some politicians talk first and think later, and that’s what (Blagojevich wanted the jury to think) happened here — that he never had any criminal act in mind.”

The strategy, though, did not work.

“The tapes, in my opinion, are so damning and so overwhelming that he was guilty that he could talk until the cows come home, and he would never be able to convince the jury,” Beckett said.

_The Associated Press contributed to this report._