Judge Zagel challenged Carolyn Gurland on an opinion Judge Ruben Castillo wrote in 2006 sentencing Michael Spano and others looting Cicero's till:

"We need not resign ourselves to the fact that corruption exists in government," Castillo wrote. "Unlike some criminal justice issues, the crime of public corruption can be deterred by significant penalties."

Zagel told Gurland, "Your argument on this issue is in direct conflict with Judge Castillo's thesis. Most judges are not burdened with being elected to office. We do not say, 'We are going to fix this problem so it will never occur again. We are realists. We know there's no way... The policy of sentencing is to make it occur less."

Gurland responded, "We don't disagree with the premise that it's important to consider policies to deter [bad] conduct," Gurland said. "I think the defendants in the Spano case, the conduct was much more egregious. [Blagojevich's] sentence doesn't need to be anywhere near the sentence that is being advocated by the government."

Now they are playing tapes of Blagojevich in which he talked about possibly appointing Lisa Madigan to the Senate seat. Goldstein urged Judge Zagel to see the "unselfishness" of the proposal that never happened and that Zagel had earlier said he did not believe.