USA authorities drop prosecution of slugger Bonds

“One of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges in favor of vacating the ruling noted that, “[The obstruction statute] stretched to its limits … poses a significant hazard for everyone involved in our system of justice, because so much of what the adversary process calls for could be construed as obstruction”.

The Justice Department was left with the option of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, which was probably unlikely to hear the case. Bonds’ lawyers have argued that the answer could not amount to a felony, and the 9th Circuit agreed, warning that the obstruction statute used to convict the former baseball star was not intended to criminalize such courtroom testimony.

The DOJ could have asked the high court to take the case. However, Bonds’ legal victory likely will not remove the tarnish attached to his on-the-field accomplishments.

Bonds was indicted on obstruction of justice and perjury charges in 2007. The court held the answer was not “material” to the intensive federal investigation into the use of performance enhancing drugs in the San Francisco Bay area. A jury convicted him of obstructing justice because of the answer he gave when he was asked if his personal trainer Greg Anderson ever injected him with steroids.

The DOJ has decided that the reversal will not be challenged in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Despite that, he has not come close to being elected into the Hall of Fame due to his PED ties.

As a result of the conviction, the Major League Baseball all-time home run leader served 30 days home confinement and paid a $4,000 fine.

“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 hit 762 home runs and maintained a stellar 1.051 OPS across parts of 22 seasons in the Majors. But he was caught in the middle of baseball’s BALCO performance-enhancing drug scandal in the early 2000s.