Barry Bonds Obstruction Case Splinters the Ninth Circuit
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Baseball superstar Barry Bonds hit one final home run in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week. An eleven-judge panel threw out Bonds’ 2011 conviction on a single count of obstruction of justice. It was a 10-1 blowout, with only one judge believing that Bonds’ conviction should be upheld, but the case produced five different opinions totaling 75 pages. The amount of ink spilled was a bit remarkable, considering this should have been, as one of the judges put it, a “very simple case.” In 2003 a grand jury in San Francisco was investigating whether Bonds’ trainer, Greg Anderson, and others had supplied illegal steroids to a number of professional athletes. Bonds was subpoenaed to testify in the grand jury and was granted immunity; prosecutors were not looking to charge him, they were interested in the information he had about Anderson. Ultimately, though, prosecutors concluded that Bonds lied in the grand jury and they indicted him on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. After years of pre-trial maneuvering the case went to trial in 2011. The government dismissed one of the perjury counts during the trial. The other three perjury counts resulted in a hung jury and were ultimately dismissed as well. The jury convicted Bonds only on the single obstruction of justice count. The jury’s guilty verdict was based on what became known as the “celebrity child” response:
Barry Bonds Obstruction Case Splinters the Ninth Circuit
Barry Bonds Obstruction Case Splinters the…
Barry Bonds Obstruction Case Splinters the Ninth Circuit
Baseball superstar Barry Bonds hit one final home run in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit last week. An eleven-judge panel threw out Bonds’ 2011 conviction on a single count of obstruction of justice. It was a 10-1 blowout, with only one judge believing that Bonds’ conviction should be upheld, but the case produced five different opinions totaling 75 pages. The amount of ink spilled was a bit remarkable, considering this should have been, as one of the judges put it, a “very simple case.” In 2003 a grand jury in San Francisco was investigating whether Bonds’ trainer, Greg Anderson, and others had supplied illegal steroids to a number of professional athletes. Bonds was subpoenaed to testify in the grand jury and was granted immunity; prosecutors were not looking to charge him, they were interested in the information he had about Anderson. Ultimately, though, prosecutors concluded that Bonds lied in the grand jury and they indicted him on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. After years of pre-trial maneuvering the case went to trial in 2011. The government dismissed one of the perjury counts during the trial. The other three perjury counts resulted in a hung jury and were ultimately dismissed as well. The jury convicted Bonds only on the single obstruction of justice count. The jury’s guilty verdict was based on what became known as the “celebrity child” response: