Barry Bonds wants a third swing on evading the felony charge set on him by a grand jury. They convicted the baseball heavy hitter of obstruction of justice when instead of simply answering the question whether he had used performance enhancing drugs, he used a diversion by rambling about how difficult it was to be the son of a famous father. When he tried to have this felony charge overturned before a three-judge 9th Circuit Panel, they unanimously rejected Bond’s arguments that he did tell the truth. So he is seeking to overturn their decision, and to do so he will have to get the case accepted by a vote of the 9th Circuit’s 27 judges.
“The statement served to divert the grand jury’s attention away from the relevant inquiry of the investigation, which was Anderson and BALCO’s distribution of steroids and PEDS,” said Judge Mary Schroeder, who wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel’s decision this September. “The statement was therefore evasive.”
If Bonds misses the third swing, he still gets a fourth: he could take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bond’s lawyer claimed that the ruling last month against him “will function as a way to obtain back-door convictions against witnesses viewed with disfavor by the government even when actual lies on their part cannot be proven,” as Mercury News reported.