Barry Bonds Case

Is Barry Bonds guilty? Of what? That has been the hot question after the jury came back with news of a “verdict”.

After starting deliberations on Friday, April 8, 2011, the jury of 4 men and 8 women convicted Barry Bonds of one count of “obstruction of justice”.

They could not reach a decision the charges relating to perjury. That means, there could be a second Barry Bonds trial if the prosecutors want to retry him.

The fact that the jury convicted Barry Bonds of obstruction of justice and not of perjury is a strange turn of events. It leaves a lot of questions at this point: will Bonds’ guilty verdict affect his chances at the baseball Hall of Fame, for instance?

The grand jury indicted Bonds on the obstruction of justice charge because of his alleged lies, specifically stating that he obstructed justice by being “intentionally evasive, false and misleading” in his testimony.

It’s hard to understand how the jury could have convicted Barry Bonds of obstruction of justice when it couldn’t decide whether he committed perjury in front of the grand jury.

The only conclusion is that the jury found Barry Bonds guilty because he was evasive and rambling while testifying before the grand jury. Maybe they thought he was not intentionally lying???

This may bode well for Bonds when it comes to sentencing – it is hard to believe that evasiveness will translate into much of a prison sentence (if there even is one). A long period of community service is certainly in the cards.

As of now, the judge has dismissed the jury and has declared a mistrial on the perjury charges. A hearing has been set for next month, and one should expect the defense to request that the judge set aside the verdict given the outcome of the perjury charges.

After that, it will be up to the State to pursue Bonds for second time. I, for one, believe that our time and money can be spent on other, more productive projects. Anyone else agree or disagree???

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