U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who oversaw infamous cases including the corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, died Saturday after a long illness. He was 82.
Zagel presided over thousands of cases during his nearly 30-year career on the bench. But he was also prolific outside the courtroom.
Zagel played a judge in the 1989 film “Music Box” under the stage name J.S. Block.
As an author, he published a novel “Money to Burn” in 2002, about a federal judge who plans a robbery of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
“Jim Zagel was a Renaissance man — a lover of the arts, music, and literature,” Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer said in a statement announcing Zagel’s death.
It was clear why Zagel played a judge on film.
Federal Judge James Zagel speaks at Eastern Illinois University Thursday, April 19, 2012.
AP
“Anyone who knew him could see why: He looked the part, and he truly inhabited the role, reflecting the best of the third branch in his wisdom, common sense and dry wit,” Pallmeyer said.
In 2011, Zagel handed Blagojevich a stunning 14-year prison sentence for his attempt to sell then-President-elect Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
He told the former governor, “The fabric of Illinois is torn and disfigured and not easily or quickly repaired.”
Blagojevich appealed. It took years, but a three-judge panel finally tossed five of his 18 convictions in 2015 and ordered a new sentencing hearing. Zagel left Blagojevich’s daughters in tears when he handed the former governor the same 14-year sentence all over again in 2016.
Zagel was admired as a judge, Pallmeyer said. Zagel also served public roles outside the courtroom.
Zagel served as the director of the Illinois Department of Revenue as an appointee of Gov. James Thompson in 1979. The following year, he was appointed to director of the Illinois State Police, a job he held until 1987, when he was appointed to the federal bench.
Zagel was born in Chicago in 1941. As a child, he walked to Chicago Bears games at Wrigley Field from his family’s Lakeview apartment, according to a biography released by the court.
He played tennis for the University of Chicago, where he received a master’s degree in philosophy in 1962.
After Zagel graduated from Harvard Law School in 1965, he went to work as a Cook County assistant state’s attorney. Following the Supreme Court’s Miranda v. Arizona in 1966, Zagel trained police officers and prosecutors on the requirements of that ruling.
Zagel was placed on the prosecution team for the case against Richard Speck, accused of murdering eight student nurses at a Chicago apartment.
“The Speck case put Zagel at the forefront of forensic science and psychology and the expanding role of constitutional doctrine in criminal procedure — areas of law that he continued to specialize in throughout his career,” the court said its obituary for Zagel.
Two years later, in 1968, he argued Witherspoon v. Illinois before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Zagel assumed senior status in 2016 as a judge in the Northern District of Illinois.
He is survived by his wife of 44 years, Margaret Maxwell Zagel.