Ode To A Ham Sandwich
“Barry Bonds who holds two of baseball’s most cherished records, was indicted in San Francisco today on four counts of perjury in connection with his testimony about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. He was also indicted on one count of obstruction of justice. The charges stem from his testimony to a federal grand jury in December 2003 when he denied knowingly taking steroids.
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When that grand jury expired without indicting Mr. Bonds, the case was sent over to a second grand jury, which focused on whether he had perjured himself before the first grand jury. Last July, with that grand jury set to expire, it was widely believed that Mr. Bonds would be indicted. But that grand jury also expired without an indictment and another grand jury was impaneled.”
From today’s New York Times online.
The third one got him.
I’m not a criminal lawyer; but, the first rule of not being indicted for perjury is to not talk with the people that might indict you.
You’ve got to know that the case against Bonds is weak when it took three grand juries, known for their willingness to indict “a ham sandwich” on the urging of a prosecutor, to finally issue charges.
It always amazes me that people that are suspects of wrongdoing talk to the police, prosecutors, and give testimony, without immunity, before grand juries. Don’t get me wrong. Bad people that are proven to have broken the law should be punished. But, more and more when prosecutors can’t find the evidence to do anything with those they suspect of breaking the law, they fall back on the suspects’ failure to get everything straight the fifty-third time they are asked about it. Hah! You lied to me. Do not pass Go.
Barry Bonds is not among my favorite people. That said, he was given bad legal advise; and, he is the victim of a prosecutor that had too much invested in multi-year investigation to let it go without taking a shot at him. And a prosecutor that took three tries to get the ham.
5 comments:
Prosecutor: "Do you, or do you not, contain mayonaisse?"
Ham Sandwich: "That depends on what the definition of 'contain' is."
Couldn't have happened to a nicer fella.
You heard Pacman Jones got a deal, didn't you?
Thanks for explaining a bit about how that aspect of the legal system works, Dave. One of these days I may actually understand some of that stuff and if/when I do, I will give all the credit to you for filling me in there!
Oh and Dave - almost forgot this - I know you had Bob Johnson's blog on your favorites - don't know if you read my blog for tonight though but I got an e-mail today from Bob's sister. He died yesterday (Wednesday -Nov 14,2007) of a massive heart attack. He was 49. I was really stunned by that as Bob and I communicated a good bit back and forth via blogs and e-mail and I really liked and admired his writing very much. Plus, he was just a darned nice guy to know -even if it was only via the blogosphere.
On a similar note, it seems like every trial begins with the defense trying to throw out the confession.
Back to Barry, I think Bond's biggest problem is his personality. He's a jerk. If he had done the exact same thing, but had a Gomer-Pyle Aw-Shucks Toe-In-The-Sand personality, nothing he did would be any big deal.
And as for baseball, it seems like if the hitters are on steroids then the fielders and the pitchers are also likely on steroids, so it all cancels out. So I don't think there should be an asterisk by the record (unless you put it there just to hack of Bonds, which might be fun).
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