As we’ve previously covered, Roger Clemens was acquitted of all charges of perjury brought against him by Congress. The jurors on the case are filling out their impressions of the case. Some of the jurors on the Roger Clemens’s case, where the baseball hall of famer was charged for perjury for his 2008 denial before Congress of using any performance enhancing drugs during his 24 career, were surprised the government even tried to make a case on it. There wasn’t much to go on. The entire case boiled down to the testimony of one man, Clemens’s old strength trainer coach, Brian McNamee, who was admittedly peeved at the Clemens, whose story morphed again and again throughout the proceedings, and whose sole evidence was a syringe kept in a beer can for over seven years.
“Brian McNamee was not a strong enough witness to render a verdict of guilty against Roger Clemens,” said juror Bradford Weaver. “The witnesses for the prosecution were, uh, how does one put it? — kind of wanting if you will …. It was quite lacking. If that’s what they were going to go with, then they should probably not have pursued the case in the first place, if that’s all they had.”
This seems to have been the sentiment of many of the jurors, who reportedly deliberated for less then 10 hours and were unanimous from the start.
“Seven years of garbage?” scoffed juror Robinson-Paul regarding the syringe evidence. “That had to be tested against the test of time in a beer can. Plus, it was devious on his part.” The jurors had suspicions that McNamee was attempted some sort of blackmail against his former friend. “His story should not have changed so many times, Robinson-Paul said. “It kept vacillating, it kept changing. It was just incredible….We felt the government did not prove their case. Not by a long shot.”
“We were asking ourselves, ‘Why did they just continue to carry this on for so long?” reported a female juror. “Why for five years? It just seemed out of proportion.”