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CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman, Mike Parker, Chief Correspondent Jay Levine, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
CHICAGO (CBS) ― Attorneys in the George Ryan corruption case are trying to convince a federal court to give the former governor a new trial.

As CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports, Ryan is facing 6 1/2 years in federal prison on a racketeering and fraud conviction, but he is free on an appeal bond. On Tuesday, a three-judge panel heard the appeal from Ryan's legal team.

Some major players were in the courtroom for the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, including former Gov. James Thompson. He and others arrived about an hour and 15 minutes early for the pivotal hearing that will determine ultimately whether or not Ryan can get a new trial or will need to go directly to prison.

Ryan himself was not present, nor was he required to be.

A Ryan attorney told three appeals court judges that "this case will go down as one of the great injustices" in U.S. history.

"We think that the trial of Governor Ryan and Mr. Warner was fatally infected, not only with juror-related errors but also with serious legal errors," Gene Schaerr said in court Tuesday.

Warner's lawyer was particularly concerned about whether the joint trial was fair to his client.

Ryan's attorneys have said two alternate jurors brought in during the trial may have been biased by news stories. They also argued that a juror who found legal papers on the Internet and brought them into the jury room ruined the deliberations.

The three Appeals Court judges, two of them from Indiana, heard arguments from both sides for about a half hour. Attorneys for Ryan and his co-defendant, businessman Larry Warner, took issue with concerns about the jury in the case and took issue with mail fraud counts.

Judges hearing the appeal asked questions about the controversial replacement of two jurors after deliberations had begun, about jurors feuding and consulting the Internet to get another juror removed. One of the judges called the jury controversies "unsettling."

Federal prosecutors contended that the trial was fair, and that the Seventh Circuit should affirm the conviction so Ryan and Warner can begin serving their federal sentences.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick M. Collins, the lead prosecutor at Ryan's trial, denied Schaerr's claim that the turmoil had "fatally infected" the deliberations and a new trial should have been granted.

Ryan's chief prosecutor, Patrick Collins, told the appeals court the trial judge had been scrupulously fair.

"The rough-and-tumble of the jury room is something that I think this court considered," Collins said. "The issue is whether the defendants got a fair trial -- not a perfect trial."

There is no way to know when the appeals court will render its decision, and attorneys warned against trying to read too much into what the appeals judges said at the hearing.

Kanne repeatedly asked questions about the behavior of jurors, who took breaks from deliberations and ran up and down the courthouse stairways as a form of exercise. He seemed to take a dim view of that.

He also said asked whether there had been talk of sequestering the jury. Collins said there had, but it was regarded as "too great an imposition" on the jurors.

"In hindsight, that doesn't look correct, does it?" Kanne said.

And Schaer said the turmoil surrounding the jury deliberations and Pallmeyer's decision to replace two jurors and start deliberations anew with fresh instructions were futile.

He recalled a comment by federal appeals Judge Frank Easterbrook -- who is not on the panel -- in an unrelated case: "It's like telling them not to pay any attention to the pink rhinoceros that just entered the courtroom."

But Judge Diane Wood, a member of the panel, questioned the notion that jurors could not have ignored the chaos at the outset of the deliberations, after Pallmeyer took steps to rectify the situation.

"There's a pink rhinoceros quality" to any efforts by a trial judge to fix potential errors, Wood said. "But we live with these curative instructions."

Ryan has spent the past five months in his Kankakee home, with rare public appearances including one at DePaul, and as a guest on Cliff Kelley's radio program. He's talked about the death penalty, but not his conviction.

Ryan and Warner were not in the courtroom Tuesday, although some members of Ryan's family were there.

Schaerr was not on hand for the trial. Dan K. Webb, who led the defense at the trial and has since become chairman of Winston & Strawn, was not present for the appeals arguments.

Former Gov. Thompson cautioned against making any predictions based on Tuesday's hearing.

"It's a mistake to assign too much meaning to what the judges say in their questions," Thompson said.

When asked how Ryan is doing, Thompson said, "He's doing as okay as anybody in his position could do I guess, living on the edge."

As CBS 2's Mike Parker reports, some say Ryan has a fighting chance of winning the appeal.

CBS 2's legal analyst, Irv Miller, believes the defense may very well win the appeal.

"If you were in Governor Ryan's shoes you would be very pleased that he got a fair hearing today," Miller said.

Miller says the granting of appeal bonds in the case might give the defendants a leg up on the move to get a new trial.

"Because they had to decide that there was a substantial issue of law impact that would likely result in a new trial in setting the bond, so they're basically signaling to the lawyers, 'Hey listen, we think there's some merit to this argument about what happened with the juror misconduct in this case," Miller said.

"What happened in this case was so unique – I've never seen it happen before. The jurors were actually removed after this amount of time deliberating," Miller added. "They bring two new jurors in. It basically taints that pool of 12 that's supposed to hear this case. And I think there's some merit to this appeal."

Two jurors in the case were dismissed and replaced with alternates during deliberations after arrest records that had not been disclosed came to light.

One of the jurors, Evelyn Ezell, later complained that written documents were brought into the jury room to coerce her.

But Miller also believes the Seventh Circuit judges will give ample consideration to the fact that Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer tried the case. She has a reputation for being conscientious.

Miller said because the judges in the Seventh Circuit were not offering any delays or extensions that they will move quickly on the case, so a written opinion can be expected sometime within the next few weeks or months.

If the judges rule against Ryan, it's expected he will have to surrender and report to prison immediately.

If he wins the appeal, prosecutors will have to decide if they will try him again.

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