Barry Bonds seeks to have conviction overturned

Friday, August 26, 2011 / San Francisco Chronicle

Prosecutors were "inventing a new criminal offense mid-trial" when they charged Barry Bonds with obstructing justice based on a single inconclusive answer in his grand jury testimony about drugs, a lawyer for the former Giants star told a federal judge Thursday (August 25).

At a hearing in San Francisco, defense attorney Dennis Riordan urged U.S. District Judge Susan Illston to overturn a jury's verdict in April that convicted Bonds based on a portion of his 2003 testimony that prosecutors said was an attempt to interfere with an investigation of steroids in sports.

Jurors deadlocked on three perjury charges against Bonds based on allegations that he lied when he testified that he had never knowingly taken steroids or human-growth hormone and had never gotten an injection from anyone but his doctor. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek a retrial of those counts.

SNIP

Illston did not indicate how or when she planned to rule. To overturn the conviction, she would have to conclude that she had erred during the trial, either in instructing the jury or in deciding that prosecutors had presented enough evidence to allow jurors to decide whether Bonds was guilty.*

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/26/BAN11KRLHA.DTL

*Fat chance

Before they take it to a higher court.

Saturday, August 27, 2011 / San Francisco Chronicle

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds' conviction for obstruction of justice will stand, a federal judge ruled Friday while also rejecting the former Giants star's bid for a new trial on that count.

Bonds "repeatedly provided nonresponsive answers" while being questioned before a grand jury about drug use, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco wrote in a 20-page ruling. And even if he eventually answered the question directly - and truthfully - later, his initial "evasive answer" supports his conviction, Illston said.

SNIP

The judge's decision came a day after Bonds' attorneys had urged her to overturn a jury's verdict in April that convicted Bonds based on a portion of his 2003 testimony that prosecutors said was an attempt to interfere with an investigation of steroids in sports. The defense has argued that the jury used an out-of-context statement to convict him and that "unauthorized rambling is not a federal crime."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/26/BA421KSO89.DTL#ixzz1WFT0TCMN

Bonds can appeal Illston's ruling to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.