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New SI.com Column on whether Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, or Rafael Palmeiro might confess to steriod use after Mark McGwire's admission

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

I have a new SI.com column titled "Don't expect Bonds, Clemens to offer their own confessions". Here's an excerpt:


Take Bonds. He remains a defendant in a criminal prosecution on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, specifically concerning whether he knowingly lied while testifying before a grand jury in 2003 that he did not use steroids. The trial, U.S. v. Bonds, has been delayed while the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considers an appeal by prosecutors that U.S. District Judge Susan Illston mistakenly barred BALCO steroids-test and other implicating evidence as inadmissible hearsay (i.e., unreliable out-of-court statements made by persons not in the trial). The odds are heavily in favor of the Ninth Circuit sustaining Judge Illston's ruling, meaning prosecutors will likely be left with limited evidence to secure a conviction.

If, however, Bonds were to admit to having knowingly used steroids, and to doing so prior to when he testified before the grand jury, he would also admit to having knowingly lied to that grand jury. Given the favorable situation of his trial, Bonds seems unlikely to admit to having committed a crime for which he probably would not otherwise be convicted and which carries with it a possible prison sentence. Therefore, whatever public relations benefit Bonds might obtain by "coming clean" would be outweighed by the legal implications of such an admission.

To read the rest of the column, click here.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on January 15, 2010 (boomark / email).