THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

It’s 30 days home confinement, 2 yrs of probation. Stayed until appeals are finished.

Thanks, fixed.

Don’t forget the 6MM or so it took to achieve that victory.

Bonds made 192 million as a player, he probably can afford the 6 million.  Of course, then you have mental anguish and loss of income due to a shortened career, which is priceless.

Bonds has to be happy though, it could have been a lot worse.  Even if they only managed to get him for not answering directly and making the prosecutor work a bit to get the answer, the sentence could have been heavier.

Clemens probably hoping he gets off as easy.

Hey Steve (3),

Do you have a link for the $6 mil figure? I’ve been trying to figure out how much this prosecution cost all day. I’ve seen figures ranging from $6 mil to $100 mil, but all of them I’ve found either are quoting sources I can’t find or simply pulling it out of their asses.

The $6 million figure comes from a Sports Illustrated article published last Spring. Unfortunately, there is no supporting evidence for how it was derived and it’s from nine months before this verdict.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1183562/index.htm

Thanks. The numbers that seam most reasonable are the $6 mil for Barry and $50 mil for the entire Balco/steroids investigation, even though I’m still not able to really nail it down. Either way, mind-boggling. Glad Uncle Sam is keeping us safe from steroid users.

Try to imagine a justice system that condones, via not prosecuting (as some here seem to be recommending) perjury and obstruction of justice. 

Now imagine how effectively that system (the one that doesn’t punish people for lying or evading under oath) would be able to enforce those other crimes that are “worthy” of Uncle Sam’s time and money.

Greg, it’s the disproportionate level of resources spent that’s the issue.

There are a finite number of humans at the DOJ, and a finite number of dollars.

That’s like spening 200MM$ for Josh Willinghman to improve your team.  Yes, Josh is a good player, and yes he will improve your team.  Is it the smartest way to spend 200MM$?

been poking around on the internet for original source of that $6 million citation, and I can’t find anything. Everything goes back to the SI article.  So now I’m skeptical of its accuracy. Could be wildly off the mark, could be a WAG, nobody seems to know.

#9/Tango

I certainly agree that this whole thing became a circus, most saliently for the DOJ because the government lost on most charges and all the really important ones. However, perjury/obstruction of justice are not the sexiest of crimes but, as Greg pointed out, may well be one of the most pernicious. The Willingham comp doesn’t seem on point to me because one of the purposes of prosecuting high profile (accused) perjurers is deterrence. Willingham doesn’t provide much of anything in the way of “off field” value, just like prosecuting Joe Schmoe doesn’t provide much of anything in the way of “out of court” value. However, prosecuting Barry Bonds brings a ton of publicity and, at least in theory, a raised awareness of the crimes of perjury/obstruction.

Obviously it would have been much more effective if the government actually won but $6 million seems to me a rather small price to pay for deterrence. But, as a lawyer, I should disclose the bias that I probably place a greater value on deterring such things than the average person does.

If you put a maximum price tag on justice (e.g. “we’ll prosecute perjury & obstruction as long as we don’t think it will cost too much"), you’ll end up with a system where poor people have to tell the truth and answer questions, but rich people don’t. 

That’s as bad as a system where no one has to, and maybe worse…

The govt could have spent 60K or 600K or 6MM, or 60MM, and you might have said “it’s a small price to pay”.

Did you actually think, before they proceeded, that 6MM would have been a “small price to pay”?

I mean, exactly how much is it for it to be a fair price?  And a large price?

@11,

Perjury and obstruction of justice are a serious crime and should be addressed. But, come on, this investigation was about steroids. It became a fishing expedition, they tripped Barry up and charged him with obstruction and perjury. They didn’t blow millions protecting peace, justice, and the American way; they blew millions on an anti-steroid crusade. If they want to make a point about perjury, things like nailing Scooter Libby are a much better way to approach it.

Tango #9:  If I can draw a parallel here, what you’re saying is rather like saying that it makes no sense to court-martial a soldier or sailor for disobeying a lawful order, unless that order is a really important one. 

If you only look at the first-order effects of something, you can convince yourself that it’s a waste to prosecute perjury, or to court-martial someone for refusing to perform some mundane duty you’ve ordered them to complete.  “So he lied under oath about something, it wasn’t anything tremendously important”; “so he refused to climb three flights of stairs to check the outlet temperature on the hot water heater in the barracks, that’s not going to get anyone killed”.

You have to look deeper, and realize the effect such official indifference to laws and regulations will have on “The System”, whether it is our civilian legal system and the rule of law, or the military’s counterpart.  If people don’t have to tell the truth under oath (or believe they don’t), our legal system is doomed.  If soldiers, sailors, Marines & airmen don’t have to obey lawful orders (or think they don’t), the military’s effectiveness is doomed.

I mean, exactly how much is it for it to be a fair price?  And a large price?

A thought experiment:

If future defendants know that the prosecution will prosecute perjury and obstruction all the way to a verdict no matter how much resistance the perjurer’s lawyers put up (read: no matter what the cost), will those future defendants be more or less likely to perjure themselves?

Same question, but what if those future defendants know that the government didn’t have the stomach to fight over perjury, and would not prosecute it if faced with a high likelihood of a long, costly battle?  Are those future defendants more or less likely to perjure themselves?

Or, maybe ask yourself this: if the prosecutors could choose right now, which would they choose?

A) demonstrated that they will prosecute perjury and obstruction vigorously, even in the face of a well-financed defense team and a high profile client; $6MM spent (if that’s the number)

or

B) demonstrated that they will cave and acquiesce to perjury and/or obstruction if the client is famous, or if the defense team seems likely to draw things out; $6MM not spent.

Never mind the prosecution’s choice, are you suggesting that you would choose B?  Don’t you appreciate the message that will send to the thousands of future defendants you will require to raise their right hand and swear an oath?

Greg,

Why did the DOJ never bring charges against Clinton after he was out of office? While I certainly don’t think he should have been impeached, he absolutely perjured himself. When the DOJ brings charges against him, then they’ll send the message that you can’t lie under oath. Until then, I’m going to view the DOJ as sore losers who couldn’t nail Bonds on any serious charges so went after him for obstruction.

I can’t answer that, I’m not really familiar with the whole Clinton saga, but I pulled this down off wikipedia:

In January 2001, on the day before leaving office, Clinton agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license as part of an agreement with the independent counsel[clarification needed] to end the investigation. Based on this suspension, Clinton was automatically suspended from the United States Supreme Court bar, from which he then chose to resign

Sounds sort of like a plea deal to avoid a perjury trial.

I’m not opposed to perjury and/or obstruction being handled as part of a plea deal; presumably the consequences of such offenses would factor into the severity of the sanction agreed to by the defendant.  That’s quite a different thing than simply ignoring a perjury or obstruction offense committed by someone who is still asserting their innocence.

The Clinton case is interesting, in that it shows potential costs of the mindset that investigative money should be “well spent”. That puts pressure on investigators and prosecutors to bring some sort of charges to justify the money already spent.

What started as an investigation into possible corruption about the failure of the Whitewater Development Corporation in Arkansas morphed into an investigation of the president’s sexual conduct, and the perjury to which he eventually admitted was basically lying to investigators about his sex life.

Now the Whitewater special counsel did obtain convictions of others involved in the corporate failure, but it ultimately did not bring charges against either Bill or Hillary Clinton, despite investigating a wide variety of issues, some far removed from the initial real estate company failure.

Failure to bring charges does not necessarily imply innocence; in theory an investigation should determine first, if a crime has been committed, and if so, second whether there is enough proof of that to prosecute or negotiate some sort of plea deal. Should the case go to trial, the jury determines whether the presented evidence proves the charges “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Given a rather high standard of evidence, we should expect that much of the time an investigation finds a crime likely occurred, but it doesn’t find enough proof to expect to convict anyone for it.

So yes, it sounds like Clinton basically agreed to a plea deal on perjury to bring the whole matter to a close, which does at least leave some legal consequences for lying to a grand jury.

I note that George W. Bush commuted “Scooter” Libby’s sentence (while not explicitly pardoning him, so the conviction remains). What message does that act send to future defendants and witnesses?

Is perjury worse than routinely lying as part of your public position? If so, then by all means prosecute someone like Bonds. Of course, I think it’s not, and members of Congress, and Presidents, lie all the time, whether under oath or not, so it’s pretty rich when they prosecute someone like Bonds for perjury.

Richard - Yes, from a legal perspective perjury is worse, because it undermines the judicial process. If witnesses can lie on the stand with impunity, then a trial becomes much tougher.

If George W. Bush were still president, would he commute Bonds’s sentence? If not, why not?

#13/Tango

A few million dollars is not an unusual amount of expenditure to investigate and prosecute a high-profile and/or wealthy defendant. Those guys tend to put up quite a fight and exhaust their appeals and so on.

To put this in a bit of perspective, the DOJ’s annual budget is about $28 billion. Expending even the alleged $6 million (an entirely fictitious and inflated figure) over the course of a decade seems like quite the bargain to me. People have certainly stopped telling me that the government doesn’t prosecute people for perjury.

Geoff: I don’t care about the legal perspective. The judicial process is so slanted and corrupted, that it can’t possibly be “undermined”.

"I note that George W. Bush commuted “Scooter” Libby’s sentence (while not explicitly pardoning him, so the conviction remains). What message does that act send to future defendants and witnesses?”

That it’s good to have powerful friends.

Larry,

How much did the Bonds trial cost? Since you assert that $6 mil is fictitious, I assume you have evidence as to what the correct number is. I, for one, would really like to know what it really cost.

Greg and Geoff,

You have made some good points about Whitewater, including the point that Clinton gave up his law license to make it go away (which I had forgotten). I would say this: questions regarding corruption of public officials are much more serious than questions of whether athletes took steroids. I personally think it’s worth huge sums of money to make sure elected officials are not corrupt, viewing that as insurance against them raiding the treasury to give favors to friends.

As to figuring out whether Marian Jones, Barry Bonds, et al., took steroids, who cares? Seriously, go to your local gym and see if you can find some random dude who can hook you up with steroids. I’m pretty sure you can, and I’m pretty sure he’ll never get hit with federal charges. That’s one of my problems with the war on drugs in the first place: it will always have selective enforcement because it’s impossible to arrest and try everyone who breaks drug laws.

Finally, in an era of budget austerity, I think it’s important to spend federal dollars wisely. For instance, under the budget deal just passed, LIHEAP in my state will lose about $12-13 million (down from $54 million last year). For those unfamiliar with the program (I.E.,those who don’t live in frigid northern states), it provides financial assistance to low income people to help them afford heating fuel. As a frame of refernce, I’ll spend around $350-400 per month over the next 4 months to keep my modest, well-insulated home warm. That $6 mil would have been enough to heat 15,000-20,000 homes similar to mine for a month. So this is a very real trade-off.

Now, maybe you think making some nebulous point about perjury (don’t lie under oath, or we might make you stay in your house for a month) is a better deal than using it to heat people’s homes. That’s certainly your prerogative. But this money isn’t spent in a vacuum and some of us would prefer to see it spent elsewhere, while still others would probably prefer to see it not spent at all to reduce the deficit. So the question isn’t, “Is perjury bad?” The question is, “Is pursuing Victor Conte and professional athletes for steroids more important to us as a nation than our other spending priorities or reducing the deficit?”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094226/quotes?qt=qt0439711

I’m gonna tell you something. Somebody messes with me, I’m gonna mess with with him. Somebody steals from me, I’m gonna say you stole. Not talk to him for spitting on the sidewalk. Understand?

Now, I have done nothing to harm these people but they are angered with me, so what do they do, doctor up some income tax, for which they have no case. To speak to me like me, no, to harass a peaceful man. I pray to god if I ever had a grievance I’d have a little more self respect.

One more thing, you have an all out prize fight, you wait until the fight is over, one guy is left standing. And that’s how you know who won.

So the question isn’t, “Is perjury bad?” The question is, “Is pursuing Victor Conte and professional athletes for steroids more important to us as a nation than our other spending priorities or reducing the deficit?”

mcsnide,

Nowhere in here did I offer my opinion on whether the Bonds investigation, or any other PED’s investigation, ought to have been initiated.  I’d say you could definitely argue that one from both sides, and I haven’t taken the time to educate myself to the point where I’d feel comfortable taking a side on that.

However, when it comes to obstruction of justice and perjury, I’ve already made up my mind about them: zero tolerance.  If you step up to the podium, swear out an oath to tell the truth, and then lie, you ought to be held accountable for that action.  Same thing if you are under oath, and you attempt to evade questions instead of answering them (which is in most cases an attempt to avoid admitting something incriminating without perjuring oneself).

Why no tolerance of these crimes?  Because they form a big part of the bedrock on which our entire legal system is anchored. 

If someone can lie under oath without repurcussion, what chance have we got of providing justice via our system?  And I will point out that this goes both ways: not only have we got little chance of convicting people who are guilty of crimes, we would also have little chance of acquitting innocent people.  How would you like it if you were accused of a crime, and “the system” decided that it was OK to overlook lies stated under oath by the prosecution that falsely implicated you?  Or is perjury only a “victimless crime” if committed by the defense?

As for obstruction, if we allowed that, why wouldn’t every defendant on the stand under oath take at least one try at obfuscation and evasion, rather than admitting “yes, I was there”, or “yes, I said that”?  If there’s no penalty for such tactics, then every defense lawyer out there will coach their clients to at least try that, for every question they are posed.  Or do you doubt the enthusiasm with which a defense lawyer will exploit a favorable loophole?  Further, if you think it’s a matter of degree (i.e. “it took him X seconds to answer the question"), then you are just saying “ok, everyone gets a chance to game the system by stalling and obfuscating, but don’t overdo it.” How would that serve justice?

You want to argue that a steroids investigation should never have happened?  OK, go ahead and argue that.  I’m not sure whether I agree with that or not.  You want to argue that perjury or obstruction by a defendant who is maintaining their innocence should be overlooked due to some characteristic of the crime they are accused of, or because of the depths of their pockets?  Go ahead, but I disagree.

I’d argue that perjury and obstruction ought to be overlooked because in this case there was no perjury, and the obstruction charge is so modest as to barely register. Have you read the interview excerpts that the prosecution used to convict Bonds on the obstruction count? I linked up a document with them.

Every legal commentator that I read after the conviction reported that “obstruction” of this kind is to be expected, not out of nefarious intent but just the difficulty in answering questions precisely, and that the courts would spend every day of every year on obstruction counts if they applied the same standard to everyone as they did to Barry Bonds. That this prosecution was about “going after the big guy” and NOT standing up to the principle of truthfulness in testimony seems to me to be really obvious.

Yeah, we had a thread on this at the time.  You don’t even have to read the thread, just the subject line:

http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/barry_bonds_convinction_of_rambling_for_75_seconds_before_telling_the_truth/

Dave,

I don’t buy this part:

“obstruction” of this kind is to be expected, not out of nefarious intent but just the difficulty in answering questions precisely,

I did read the transcript, and the question Bonds rambled on was a yes/no question:  “Did Greg (Anderson) ever give you anything that required a syringe to inject yourself with?”

It’s a stretch to suggest that Bonds misunderstood that - especially if you read the page preceding that exchange, where Bonds is asked several simple questions, and gives several direct, succinct answers.

Now, to your second point: which part of this do you disagree with? 

United States District Court Judge Susan Illston said it did not matter that Bonds eventually answered the question.  In her ruling, she wrote that the question was material to the investigation and that “the defendant endeavored to obstruct the grand jury by not answering it when first asked.”

She added, “An evasive answer about an issue material to the grand jury is not necessarily rendered immaterial by the later provision of a direct answer, even if that direct answer is true.”

If your objection to Bonds being held to the letter of the law is based on the fact that some others may not be held to that standard, then I might agree with you, although I’d need to see an example of someone’s perjury or obstruction being ignored in a case they won; I suspect most of the time, if not in all cases, when you see perjury or obstruction not prosecuted, it’s because the one who did that already got convicted of something more serious, and there wouldn’t have been any change in the sentence. 

For example, most murderers who go to trial claim they didn’t do it, they weren’t there, they were miles away, etc.  Upon conviction for murder, nobody wastes time trying to tack on a couple concurrent years for perjury.  However, if the accused beats the murder rap, but demonstrably perjures himself in the process, or obstructs, then you see that charge pursued.

In any case, he rambled for 75 seconds, and when asked a second time, gave a firm one word answer.

Uhhh, do you guys not have parents?  My mother rambles for at least three minutes, before she gives me an answer to something I was NOT talking about.

I pray to god you guys never get nervous in front of a grand jury.  Panic attacks will lead to 30 days of house arrest.

Of course!  But sitting across from my Mom, non sequitur is an amusing moment in a conversation.  In a trial, under oath, apparently it’s frowned upon…

"If your objection to Bonds being held to the letter of the law is based on the fact that some others may not be held to that standard, then I might agree with you, although I’d need to see an example of someone’s perjury or obstruction being ignored in a case they won . . .”

Basically, to the first part, yes. I’m out of my area of expertise here and can’t provide examples; the coverage that I read suggested that what we might call “Bondsian” obstruction is standard, if not inevitable in interviews, be they under oath or not. But that coverage could of course be wrong; like I said, I don’t know. And I think that’s relevant to the point made earlier about how at a certain point, you have to make trade-offs. There always has to be a trade-off between thoroughness and cost. This, to me, goes way too far, and I think the reason why is that it’s a personal vendetta and not an act of justice, but I see your point.

"under oath”

But he didn’t lie.  He didn’t swear to “not ramble”.  He swore to tell the truth.

Now, you are asked to give your best answer, and he didn’t give his best answer.  But since the attorney re-asked him the question, he clearly gave him a pass on the rambling answer and accepted the direct answer.

Had the attorney gone on to the NEXT question, then, yes, he obstructed.  But, since he re-asked, he rambled.

There’s a difference.

Had the attorney gone on to the NEXT question, then, yes, he obstructed.  But, since he re-asked, he rambled.

The judge disagrees…

She added, “An evasive answer about an issue material to the grand jury is not necessarily rendered immaterial by the later provision of a direct answer, even if that direct answer is true.”

I wouldn’t characterize the attorney’s re-asking the question as “giving a pass”.  If anything, it highlighted the fact that Bonds hadn’t answered the question.  Besides, it’s not the attorney’s place to interrupt his own questioning to cry foul, any more than it is the place of an NFL player to throw a yellow flag if somebody grabs his facemask…

Judge was wrong.

Had the attorney gone on to the NEXT question, then, yes, he obstructed.  But, since he re-asked, he rambled.

So the nature of one’s speech can’t be classified without knowing what happens after it?  That’s an odd way to look at it… Does the reaction make the crime?

What if someone stood up in a public place and uttered a series of epithets (racial, ethnic, take your pick) - could we *immediately* say this represented “hate speech”, or would we need to wait a few moments to see if anyone in the area objected to it before saying that?  And if no one spoke up and objected to the epithets, would we conclude that the witnesses “gave a pass” to the speaker and then classify the epithets as “OK”?

He was engaged in a Q&A, where he was only on the A part.  Come up with a better analogy please.

Not sure what you mean by that, can you elaborate?

The key point is that the government spent between $6-100 million of our tax dollars prosecuting an athlete. I don’t care if Bonds used steroids and I don’t want my government spending my tax dollars to find out. That is the Baseball League’s issue. If they care, let them fund an investigation. My kids go to a school where we have to help fund the cost of paper, you think I want to spend even $1 chasing an athlete? No way. How much are they currently spending to try and catch Lance Armstrong? It is not the way the government should be spending our money, let each sport sort out their own issues.

And no, I don’t buy the perjury argument, are you trying to convince me that the government spends this kind of money on every person who commits perjury? Of course they don’t, they chased Barry because he is a star and it brought them personal notoriety to be the prosecutor.

It is a shameless misuse of our tax dollars.