Barry Bonds Trial: Jury Will Refuse To Convict Bonds of Lying about Doping

In the Barry Bonds trial, a lot has happened.

Bonds has maintained his innocence. His alleged dope dealer is back in jail for refusing to testify. The prosecution finished its case with three counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. They dropped one perjury charge.

Will Bonds be found guilty?

The ultimate decision-maker is the jury, which says that Bonds will not be found guilty of the perjury charges.

Sure, the judge can affect the jury and its decision. And, of course, great gaffs like the glove in the O.J. Simpson case are what every attorney fears.

Yet the jury is from the San Francisco area, where marijuana is sold in specially approved "medicinal purpose" stores and the drug culture of the 1960s began. The mere fact that drugs are at issue could already plague the prosecution.

Did any of the jurors make any misstatements about their own drug use? Are they in favor of drug use? If they are not sports fans, do they feel cheated by someone who broke one of the most cherished records in all of sports?

And above all else, assuming that they do not pay any attention to these points, which facts point in the way of the prosecution, sufficient to "prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?"

We will never know what goes on between the famous accused and their attorneys.

While some of the poor in character and/or economic terms may violate the attorney-client privilege, one never sees this from famous stars of any kind. So the veil of silence is over what really went on, to the extent that what Barry Bonds told his attorney is the truth. Because criminal defendants, like all others involved in court proceedings, are prone to lying.

What we do know is that celebrities win more often than lose. Far more often.

The central question in this trial is whether or not Bonds lied. And were these huge lies sufficiently important to prosecute anyone?

In fact, they are not so much lies as very short answers to three questions. So short they seem pathetic—especially in the context of a trial involving no big issue in a very small and well-paid part of society.

They went "Not that I know of," "No, no," "No" and "Right."

Barry Bonds was one of the greatest baseball heroes in history. And he is now a sports figure whose reputation is in tatters because no one—and I mean no one—believes Bonds' account of the situation.

Whatever questions these few words answered, they were definitely not: "Did you shoot the President?"; "Did you commit an act of treason?"; "Did you steal $4 million from Wells Fargo?"; and "So you are saying you did not beat your wife?"

Yet somehow, as with every perjury case, there is only a lie or two.

And the fact is that they are not even trying to say he was lying about the main subject of all the Bonds publicity.

Bonds admits the use of "the clear" and the lotion. He just denies that he knew (or perhaps knows to this day) that they were performance-enhancing drugs.

It is a sneaky way to prosecute someone, if indeed taking performance-enhancing drugs of this type is illegal.

Is a juror going to say that this is a really low-handed way to get Bonds? Either go to get the major leagues or you are out of here! I am not going to let you have such an easy road, even if we believe your witnesses—much less those who are really victims, not criminals.

It only takes one in a criminal case. One juror says, "You're out!" and you lose.

For these reasons, Bonds will not be found guilty of lying about the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

This has nothing to do with whether he lied, although the facts are not that strong.

They will refuse to find against Bonds because he is in the middle of a drug culture society; the user is not the bad guy, but just another rich guy, and convicting someone on three answers—two of which are only one-word long—seems absurd. 

In fact, now that I think of it, this prosecution was for baseball and its fans. The prosecution lost sight of prosecutorial discretion in the bright lights of their own stardom and the star they were after.

The jury will see all this. And be affected by all this.

And the jury will smack the prosecution down, at least as to the perjury counts.