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CHICAGO (CBS) ― A federal judge replaced two dismissed jurors with alternates Tuesday at former Illinois Gov. George Ryan's racketeering and fraud trial, easing for now concern that the six-month trial would end with no decision and have to be restarted from scratch.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer denied a mistrial motion by attorneys for Ryan and co-defendant Larry Warner but said she would reconsider if she later came to believe the deliberations were not continuing fairly with the two new jurors.

"The number one goal here is fairness," Pallmeyer said.

Ryan, Warner and the former governor's wife and son sat silently staring up Pallmeyer as she announced the decision she reached after two days of talks with attorneys and jurors aimed at resolving the crisis and avoiding the mistrial that some believed was all but inevitable.

U.S. District Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary S. Shapiro also looked on grimly as the judge explained that there could still be a mistrial.

"I have not shut the door on this possibility," Pallmeyer said. She said her decision "to go forward right now is not irrevocable" and that she might step in and stop the trial if she came to the conclusion that the reconstituted jury's deliberations were somehow happening unfairly.

The alternates chosen to replace the ousted jurors are both white suburbanites in their 40s. One works at payroll firm, the other as a grocery store manager.

Pallmeyer said the jury's deliberations would have to begin as if none of the jurors had ever discussed the case with each other. The original jury deliberated eight days.

"What you would ask the jury to do now is to come back in, get jury instructions with the two new members. Wipe the slate clean. Wipe the mind clean, although you may have already formulated some decisions. Wipe all that clean and start fresh," said Former U.S. Attorney James Burns.

When asked if that's realistic, he replied: "With human nature, you'd say it would take an awfully big person to do that."

Pallmeyer said she had confidence in this jury and that the ten original members made a big commitment of their time.

She's convinced, she said, the jury can help reach her goal of fairness to defendant George Ryan and Larry Warner.

"You've been diligent and are being given another chance to start over," she said.

"I think a decision like this potentially ensures justice. She's saying, 'I don't want to jeopardize six months of trial,'" said Professor Richard Kling of the Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Pallmeyer said that in an effort to make the deliberations seem as fresh as possible she was having security men strip the jury room of any notes, charts or other materials that the jurors had produced. She then began reading them the same 148 pages of instructions as before.

Ryan, 72, and Warner, 67, are charged in a 22-count indictment with racketeering, mail fraud and other offenses. Prosecutors say that as secretary of state for eight years in the 1990s and governor for four years afterward Ryan steered state leases and contracts to Warner and others.

In return, they say, Ryan was rewarded with free vacations in Jamaica, Mexico and California and gifts ranging from $145,000 in loans for his brother's floundering business to a free golf bag.

Ryan and Warner say nothing they did was illegal.

Defense attorneys had tried hard to persuade Pallmeyer not to place the two alternates on the jury and instead to declare a mistrial.

A motion filed by Ryan's lawyers argued that alternate jurors should not be called back to the courthouse after "jurors have had the case under deliberation for two and a half weeks, during which time there have been numerous notes, questions and indications of deadlock, all against the backdrop of pervasive media attention."

"Even if an alternate juror were able to avoid the substantial press and publicity surrounding deliberations, it is simply not possible or reasonable to expect that he or she could engage in meaningful, constitutionally required deliberations with jurors who have already spent two and a half weeks deliberating the case in detail," Ryan's attorneys said.

Pallmeyer agreed that the situation was "very challenging, very difficult."

"This is not an easy matter," she said.

The jury began deliberating the charges March 13. But last week disclosures in the Chicago Tribune concerning two jurors brought deliberations to a stop and threw the trial into crisis.

Pallmeyer excused the two jurors on Monday.

Those jurors -- Evelyn Ezell of Chicago and Robert Pavlick of suburban Buffalo Grove -- indicated on the questionnaire that all jurors fill out before the trial that they had never been accused of a crime. Public records show Pavlick was convicted of felony drunken driving and other offenses. Several of the arrests occurred while Ryan headed the secretary of state's office, which issues driver's licenses.

Public records also show Ezell's birth date and Social Security number match a woman with a similar name who had been charged with drug possession and other offenses but never convicted.

Federal prosecutors say it is their policy not to check on the criminal records of potential jurors. But Pallmeyer said in announcing that she would be restarting the deliberations that the government had now run criminal background checks on all the jurors.

FBI Agent Ray Ruebenson, who investigated the Ryan case, has been seen bringing papers into the judge's chambers for the past two days while Pallmeyer met behind closed doors with the prosecutors, the defense attorneys and the jurors.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)