Feds end Barry Bonds prosecution without conviction

A jury had convicted Bonds of obstructing justice in 2007 for his answer to a question about being injected with steroids by his personal trainer, Greg Anderson. (Credit: AP) The US attorney for the Northern District of California informed the Ninth Circuit in a Tuesday filing that the government would not appeal the April decision that overturned Bonds’s conviction for testimony he gave to a grand…

In addition to going all the way to the Supreme Court, the DOJ could have also asked the 11-judge panel to reconsider the April decision to overturn the conviction, or they could have asked all 29 judges on the 9th Circuit to rehear the case. The slugger was convicted on one obstruction charge in 2011, and the jury deadlocked on three perjury counts.

“The most one can say about this statement is that it was non-responsive and thereby impeded the investigation to a small degree by wasting the grand jury’s time and trying the prosecutors’ patience”, he wrote.

Bonds’ answer to that led to all of this legal action?

[On the week’s StewPod: The secrets of ‘Major League, ‘ our favorite baseball movie.].

Last week the DOJ had announced that it would not appeal the court’s ruling on overturning the conviction.

Bonds was called before a grand jury investigating BALCO in 2003. “I just don’t get into other people’s business because of my father’s situation, you see”. But he was caught in the middle of baseball’s BALCO performance-enhancing drug scandal in the early 2000s. A player must garner at least 75 per cent of the vote to be elected. He served the home confinement portion while waiting for his appeal to be decided.

“Thank you to all of you who have expressed your heartfelt wishes to me; for that, I am grateful”, Bonds said.

For Bonds, the clearing of his criminal record could provide ammunition for his stated goal of eventually gaining entry into baseball’s Hall of Fame, although the baseball world long ago concluded he used performance enhancing drugs to boost his career, and Bonds himself testified that he was simply not aware the substances he was taking were steroids known as the “cream” and the “clear”.