feds victimize family to get trainer to talk

[dickay]

He did not make up his mind before seeing any information

I read that and stopped there. Thats nowheres close to anything I said....and I'm pretty much done with this.

[kenny1234]

There is no reason that Greg Anderson should not be compelled to testify. The law states that he can refuse to testify if it will incriminate him - but he has immunity so that doesn't hold. Overall, there is a large public interest in requiring that people tell the truth in court proceedings - and that people testify to what they know when asked by the court. These two things are critical to the justice system.

As to the cost, and whether the case is worth it - did the government think the case would cost this much when it started? Probably not. But they have already spent that money, it is gone and essentially irrelevant. How much more will it cost to convict Bonds? Who knows - I wouldn't be upset if they tossed Anderson back in jail for refusing to testify as that seems to be the only barrier. There is no reason that Anderson should get to protect his friend - that isn't the way the justice system works, and it would set a bad precedent to allow it to happen in such a public case.

[HoustonGM]

I read that and stopped there. Thats nowheres close to anything I said....and I'm pretty much done with this.

Maybe it's not what you meant to say, but it's exactly what you DID say:

Why can't it be that the government's case just IS weak? Why do you have to accuse people of making up their minds without the information, and then refusing to change it when they see the information? That's completely NOT the case.

As for shyster.....IT IS COMPLETELY THE CASE!

There is no reason that Greg Anderson should not be compelled to testify. The law states that he can refuse to testify if it will incriminate him - but he has immunity so that doesn't hold. Overall, there is a large public interest in requiring that people tell the truth in court proceedings - and that people testify to what they know when asked by the court. These two things are critical to the justice system.

As to the cost, and whether the case is worth it - did the government think the case would cost this much when it started? Probably not. But they have already spent that money, it is gone and essentially irrelevant. How much more will it cost to convict Bonds? Who knows - I wouldn't be upset if they tossed Anderson back in jail for refusing to testify as that seems to be the only barrier. There is no reason that Anderson should get to protect his friend - that isn't the way the justice system works, and it would set a bad precedent to allow it to happen in such a public case.

Agreed for the most part, but there simply is no way for the government to FORCE him to testify. If he doesn't talk, then he doesn't talk, and there's nothing they can do to make him talk.

[kenny1234]

Agreed for the most part, but there simply is no way for the government to FORCE him to testify. If he doesn't talk, then he doesn't talk, and there's nothing they can do to make him talk.

Except throw him back in jail or fine him a significant amount of money. No, they can't force him to talk - they can make it awfully expensive to choose not to. He has no legal reason to not testify - therefore he can easily be held in contempt of court if he chooses not to. I think this is actually a compelling reason to continue with the case. The legal system is on precarious ground if it allows people to choose when they wish to obey the law. There is no freedom of the press issue, no doctor-patient privilege, basically nothing that allows Anderson a legal reason to not talk.

[HoustonGM]

Except throw him back in jail or fine him a significant amount of money. No, they can't force him to talk - they can make it awfully expensive to choose not to. He has no legal reason to not testify - therefore he can easily be held in contempt of court if he chooses not to. I think this is actually a compelling reason to continue with the case. The legal system is on precarious ground if it allows people to choose when they wish to obey the law. There is no freedom of the press issue, no doctor-patient privilege, basically nothing that allows Anderson a legal reason to not talk.

He's proven before that he's willing to go to jail in order to not testify, though. So, yeah, they can do that, but that won't make him testify. As for a fine, that might have a better chance, although I'm not sure if they're able to, as I'm not sure just what the law says about punishment for being in contempt of court. Considering how badly they want him to testify, though, if they're able to fine him, why haven't they?

[HoustonGM]

Well, bad news for the government:

Barry Bonds’s steroids test, doping calendars prepared by his trainer and other key government evidence might be excluded from the baseball players’ perjury trial, a federal judge said.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston said today she was leaning toward ruling that the evidence is inadmissible unless federal prosecutors have testimony from Greg Anderson, Bonds’s former trainer, or other witnesses who can link the calendars and blood tests to Bonds.

“If nobody testifies about them, the ones that are allegedly related to the defendant, I don’t find that the hearsay exception urged will get them into evidence,” Illston said at a hearing in San Francisco.

[OregonDuck1989]

Good, using flawed evidence should never be allowed. The French used the same method against Lance Armstrong.

[HoustonGM]

From Baseball Think Factory:

Interesting. I think that this would leave at most just the single THG test from 2003, and that by itself won't get them perjury. So we're still, after a couple of years of this, probably back where we started: Anderson is the key. If so, expect, over the next four weeks, to see the IRS going after anybody who has ever talked to Greg Anderson. Friends, relatives, neighbors, his pet dog. They're not going to quietly let him not testify.