GFBB Note: Craig Calcaterra who penned this post is a lawyer and has some really interesting comments on this case. Example: “…..the fact is, Bonds was asked a yes or no question and he answered “no. And ” It is not the job of the criminal justice system to punish an evasive or non-responsive witness”. If you’ve been following this case you’ll like this article.
I’d like to talk about the obstruction of justice charge, not just in the Barry Bonds case, but about the charge in general as it’s used in our judicial system. For example take this hypothetical situation in a court setting:
Question: “What did you find out?”
Answer: “I found out I didn’t find out anything.”
Question: “Oh yah? How did you find that out?”
Answer: “I don’t know.”
Evasive answer? Maybe. Maybe not. But after years of investigation, interviews, personal vendettas and dumpster diving, the prosecutors in the Barry Bonds perjury trial ended up with obstruction of justice being the only charge that the jury found fit to find Bonds guilty of.
Our system is seriously flawed folks. What does obstruction of justice mean? It sounds to me like it means if, for whatever reason, the jury can’t find the defendant guilty of anything else, they can always charge him with obstruction of justice – meaning the defendant got in the way of a conviction on one or more of the other 75 charges.
Posted in A4 Uncategorized
Tagged Barry Bonds, BASEBALL, Bonds, defendant, dumpster diving, judicial system, Jury, Obstruction of justice, Prosecutor, prosecutors, Ryan Braun, Susan Illston
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