The federal government doesn’t want the jury in Roger Clemens trial to hear about the ridiculous amount of money spent on the steroid witch-hunt against the seven-time Cy Young Award winner. While an exact dollar amount has not been disclosed, the Clemens investigation is thought to have cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
The former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher denied having ever used anabolic steroids or hGH in statements given under oath to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2008. The government didn’t believe he was telling the truth about steroids, so they charged him with one count of obstructing a congressional investigations, three counts of making false statements and two counts of perjury.
Even United States District Judge Reggie Walton acknowledged the excessive amount of money spent by the government when he chastised prosecutors for their colossal mistakes that led to a mistrial in the first trial last summer.
“We’ve spent a lot of money to reach this point,” Walton said in July 2011. “Government counsel should have been more cautious about what was presented so we are not in this situation.”
Judge Walton suggested that a first-year law student was more competent than Assistant United States Attorneys Steven Durham and Daniel Butler when the AUSAs introduced inadmissible evidence during the first trial in direct violation of the judge’s order.
However, Walton allowed for a second trial in April 2012 after he concluded that the government did not deliberately and intentionally violate his order regarding the admissibility of evidence. Rather, legal analysts concluded that prosecutors were only guilt of extreme carelessness at best and gross incompetence at worst.
Federal prosecutors want the judge to keep jurors at the second trial in the dark about the incompetence that led to a mistrial because it would “foster confusion and sympathy” for Clemens.
Furthermore, prosecutors have also requested that the penalties faced by Clemens if he is convicted for lying about his use of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (hGH) be kept a secret from the jury. If Clemens is convicted, he could conceivably spend 30 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.
Who wouldn’t be prejudiced against a government that wastes so much money and is willing to put a money in prison for 30 years for essentially not wanted to tell the truth about his use of steroids?
Source:
Schoenberg, T. (March 19, 2012). Clemens Shouldn’t Tell Jurors About Mistrial, U.S. Says. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-19/clemens-shouldn-t-tell-jurors-about-mistrial-u-dot-s-dot-says
