Chicago ? Rod Blagojevich’s defense attorney clashed with the judge Monday over his planned closing arguments, pledging to go to jail if he is prohibited from telling jurors about witnesses that prosecutors never called.

Hours after prosecutors summed up their case against the disgraced former Illinois governor, Judge James B. Zagel sent the jury home early after attorney Sam Adam Jr. complained the judge was gutting his closing arguments.

The judge said he was giving the defense attorney the night to rework his closing arguments, and said Adam could designate another defense attorney to give the closing today if he could not follow the rules.

Prosecutors spent the day hammering the message that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald voiced from the day Blagojevich was arrested in December 2008: That the governor of Illinois was involved in a “political crime spree.”