Blagojevich retrial jury selection resumes

CHICAGO, April 25 (UPI) -- Jury selection resumed Monday in the corruption retrial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in a U.S. District Court in Chicago.

During the interviews, U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel questioned prospective jurors, focusing on pre-trial publicity, the Chicago Tribune reported.

He also addressed witness credibility, referring to one juror's questionnaire in which the potential juror wondered about the difficulty of determining how credible witnesses were if they made deals with prosecutors to testify.

"There's no machine that can tell you when they are truthful," said Zagel, noting that's what juries must figure out. "It actually may not be that dissimilar from the decision you had to make many years ago when you had to decide which child was telling you the truth."

Blagojevich, 54, faces a trial on 20 federal charges, including allegations he tried to sell or trade an appointment to President Barack Obama's vacated U.S. Senate seat for campaign cash or a high-level job. A jury last summer convicted Blagojevich on one count and deadlocked on 23 others. The government is trying to reframe the same evidence into a more easily understood form.