A juror has gone missing from the Rod Blagojevich trial.
Juror No. 132, a female, was supposed to be on the list of 12 men and women who were to sit in judgment of Rod Blagojevich. But earlier today when the court clerk read the juror numbers, her's was missing.
Turns out she was dismissed from the jury pool, and reclassified as an alternate, according to court clerk.
"Nothing nefarious," said defense attorney Sheldon Sorovsky.
The juror who replaced her is also a woman, so the make up remains 11 females and 1 male.
Meanwhile, defense attorneys filed a motion for mistrial early Friday claiming that Judge James Zagel unfairly influenced the trial and informed the jury as to which facts he believed to be true.
"The Court has not only made findings of fact, but it has effectively ruled that it does not believe certain aspects of the testimony of Blagojevich," the motion states.
"It's not unusual. It's not rare that lawyers file motions for mistrial. You're arguing that the judge or the prosecutor did something so outrageous that you were deprived of a fair trial. It's extraordinarily rare for them to be granted," said legal attorney Richard Kling of Chicago's Kent College of Law.
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Zagel considered the motion but ultimately denied it, stating that he felt he'd been fair.
"If I erred and excluded evidence, the place to deal with this is in the court of appeals," he said.
