By KELSEY SWANEKAMP
Buffalo Law Journal

Editor's note: Kelsey Swanekamp is an undergraduate journalism student at Northwestern University in Chicago. She will join the staff of the Buffalo Law Journal as a paid intern in June.

Tuesday morning last week, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich strolled confidently into a courtroom on the 25th floor of the federal court building in the heart of Chicago. He shook a few hands as he walked from the back of the crowded courtroom to his seat in front of U.S. District Judge Hon. James Zagel.

He calmly entered his "not guilty" plea, alongside his brother Robert, to 19 counts ranging from wire fraud to racketeering, and deliberately answered Zagel's list of questions. When asked the extent of his education, he nearly stuttered in response, "Um, I have a degree from law school."

Robert Blagojevich, also named in the 75-page indictment, entered a "not guilty" plea of his own.

Soon, Rod Blagojevich's lawyer took over. Sheldon Sorosky, the defense attorney, briefly discussed renegotiating Blagojevich's bond to allow him to travel, and releasing campaign funds to compensate additional attorneys for the defense. Ten minutes later, it was over.

There was a cumulative sigh from the people packed into the straight-backed wooden pews of the courtroom. Everyone was in a rush to get out. The press corps leapt out of their seats in the jury box. Then we stood in the hall, waiting. Finally: the governor.

I smiled at him as he walked by. He smiled back.

"Hi governor," I said.

"Hi there," he said. Noticing my notebook, he added, "I wish you the best of luck with this."

By the time I recovered myself, the governor had been neatly stuffed in an elevator and was heading down 25 stories with every member of the press who managed to jump in. Suddenly, pandemonium.

We dashed. We pounded on elevator buttons. We filled the tiny shafts beyond any normal expectation of "capacity."

In the lobby of the courthouse, the chase began. The press corps, with their giant cameras, their microphones, their flash bulbs, was pressed against the glass. They looked like a living, breathing thing, perhaps a vicious sea creature.

I squeezed through the rotating door to get outside, and I was instantly inside the rolling tidal wave of the press mob.

"Come on, guys, back off," someone yelled.

"Let ‘im get out!," shouted another disembodied voice.

I quickly realized that the governor wasn't coming out, and I wanted to be wherever he was. So I shuffled back into the courthouse and joined the small swarm of notebook-toting journalists.

We paced up and down the lobby behind Blagojevich and his people. They seemed to be desperately searching for a way to get out unnoticed. But the black sea creature of cameras outside glided up and down the window with him as he walked.

Trapped like a creature of prey, he walked to the rotating glass door and spun out into the mob.

I followed close behind and was greeted with a wall of waving microphones and flashing cameras, and an eerie soundtrack of invisible voices screaming, "Governor! Governor!" Every so often, a single question would break through the din, and the crowd would silence itself in wait for the response.

"Governor, do you feel bad that your brother has become involved in this?"

"Governor, are you planning on going to Costa Rica?"

"What's your strategy?"

After dodging the first few questions, he grabbed a member of the crowd who had been struggling to take his picture and began posing for pictures with him.

When asked about his strategy, he replied, "The truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth."

The mob scribbled down his answers ferociously, and microphones were passed along the line from reporter to reporter to get as close as possible to the lips of the governor.

"Governor, are you worried about the upcoming trial?"

"Right now, my biggest concern is getting in the car," he replied.

As the crowd surrounding the governor became more physical and tightly packed, one reporter spotted a man taking photographs on his cell phone.

"He's taking pictures on a f---ing cell phone. Professional press only!" she shouted.

When Blagojevich finally made it to the curb, the cameramen and reporters, desperate to get one last shot or question in, spilled over into the street

Once the former governor was safely stowed inside a shiny black SUV, the press moved on to its next target: Sorosky, his attorney.

Sorosky was less expansive than the chatty ousted governor. As reporters chased him down the block, and cameramen barely dodged the stone pillars of the courthouse, the lawyer gave few responses beyond saying, "It will all be decided in court."

When he crossed the street, the accompanying mass of cameras and bodies stalled traffic as they hobbled awkwardly through the intersection. A man walking next to me turned and asked, "Who is this?"

"It's Rod Blagojevich's attorney," I shouted with breathless impatience.

The chase continued for a few city blocks, and eventually I drifted away from Sorosky and the diminishing mob.

Later in the day, rumors began circulating that Blagojevich planned to star in the NBC reality show, "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!"

That development seemed to fit with the day's experiences. Blagojevich was no longer an ousted governor, a defendant in a federal prosecution, a co-conspirator. He had become a celebrity.