04/24/24
July 14, 2011
Clemens trial ends abuptly: The judge presiding over Roger Clemens' perjury trial declared a mistrial over inadmissible evidence shown to jurors.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said Clemens could not be assured a fair trial after prosecutors showed jurors evidence against his orders in the second day of testimony.
Wow, in a really sad way that is kind of funny. And, to think I thought it would be impossible to make this ordeal more of circus. At least the prosecutors got the mistrial ruling as quickly as they could.
posted by dviking at 01:12 PM on July 14, 2011
Good wrap-up on what this means at Grantland.
posted by holden at 03:34 PM on July 14, 2011
So stupid, it seems almost intentional.
posted by graymatters at 07:35 PM on July 14, 2011
I know Clemens' lead attorney says he's going to argue "double jeopardy;" barely enough testimony and evidence was presented during the trial so that it might prejudice most people. Most retrial requests are granted.
About today: this is something maybe two or three first-year attorneys might do because they're so overwhelmed by their case they would forget the judge's ruling. This was utter stupidity; maybe the prosecution believed it had to skirt Judge Walton's ruling (show the video but tell the jury to ignore it) since it appears much of the case is circumstantial.
posted by jjzucal at 09:38 PM on July 14, 2011
I'm not an attorney, but from what I read today, if the judge thinks the prosecution skirted the rules on purpose, isn't that grounds for denying a retrial?
I hope so, just tired of this ordeal. three years ago this had some relevance to the steroid issue in baseball, now, too much has changed.
posted by dviking at 10:50 PM on July 14, 2011
barely enough testimony and evidence was presented during the trial so that it might prejudice most people.
From most things I read it was a strong start from the prosecution. So it doesn't make sense to me that they were trying to sneak this through.
Prosecutor Durham had done a masterful job in his opening statement and was building powerful evidence on the difficult issue of the committee's authority to investigate baseball when the video blunder occurred. The prosecutors' work throughout the process has been high-quality and nearly error-free.
A mistrial like this is a rare event in federal courts. Deliberate defiance of a judge's order by federal prosecutors is even rarer. If this combination of rare events has indeed occurred, it could allow Clemens to walk away from a massive investigation and prosecution that seemed likely to send him to prison.
I'm curious what Clemens thinks of the possibility of not being tried again. I think his attorney must be thrilled, but Clemens might still believe he would have been found not guilty.
just tired of this ordeal
Why? I was sick of the casey anthony so I stopped paying attention. You can easily avoid every story and post on clemens. It's easily done.
posted by justgary at 07:47 AM on July 15, 2011
You can easily avoid every story and post on clemens. It's easily done.
Avoiding this site would be easy, not so much for avoiding my newspaper's sports section (front page story), the internet (listed under top news) any tv sports related news show (every station I saw ran with it)
If I follow baseball, I can't easily avoid seeing items about Clemens...If I didn't care for the Casey Anthony case (I didn't) it was easier to skip by it as I don't tend to spend much time, reading/watching the articles/shows that covered that event non-stop.
posted by dviking at 10:10 AM on July 15, 2011
From most things I read it was a strong start from the prosecution. So it doesn't make sense to me that they were trying to sneak this through.
They had already violated a pretrial order in their opening statement. They wanted to win, so they would do whatever they thought it took. Trial lawyers are always trying to ride the line about what they can get away with. People who like to be careful and play it safe do not become trial lawyers.
posted by bperk at 11:00 AM on July 15, 2011
Ok good for Clemens. Time for the feds to stop the witch hunt. Way to much money wasted on conjecture and circumstantial non sense. Just because I tell my wife something that I believe is true does not make it so. Hard to see why the prosecution was using that info to bolster their case. This is like the Bonds case, looking for a technicality to trip up on. Barry's conviction should be overturned on appeal since he did answer the questions asked more than once. Rambling or not. If the state or the feds can lie in trying to catch someone then where is the level playing field?
posted by quizman at 01:09 PM on July 15, 2011
You can easily avoid every story and post on clemens. It's easily done.
I guess I can avoid it if I fastforward through the first 5 minutes of PTI and Around the Horn every other day...but if you're a sports fan watching and reading sports news it's pretty pervasive.
posted by bdaddy at 01:28 PM on July 15, 2011
They wanted to win, so they would do whatever they thought it took. Trial lawyers are always trying to ride the line about what they can get away with.
This doesn't make any sense to me. From everything I read (beyond what the judge said) this was Law School 101. Every single attorney does whatever it takes to win except crossing a line that basically loses them the case. Whatever it takes doesn't work when what it took gets the trial thrown out.
The prosecution had been told they could use pettittes wife in rebuttal under certain situations. Doing it now, when the consequences were clear, is mind boggling.
There's more to it than that, and I'd love to hear what the Attorney was thinking.
Avoiding this site would be easy, not so much for avoiding my newspaper's sports section (front page story), the internet (listed under top news) any tv sports related news show (every station I saw ran with it)
So you have to turn the sports page, skip the headline, turn the station. I get it's annoying. I'm just saying if anyone wastes much time on it that's their choice. Everyone in this thread read the link, then commented. That's not exactly ignoring it is it?
I guess I can avoid it if I fastforward through the first 5 minutes of PTI and Around the Horn every other day...but if you're a sports fan watching and reading sports news it's pretty pervasive.
If you're getting your sports from PTI and Around the Horn you're reaping what you sow. I mean, come one, how many times have we discussed this. ESPN is tabloid sports. Saying you want to ignore this type news and watching ESPN is sort of like reading playboy and complaining about the nudity.
posted by justgary at 05:27 PM on July 15, 2011
There's more to it than that, and I'd love to hear what the Attorney was thinking.
If the attorney could talk (and currently he is saved by the gag order), he would probably say it was just a simple mistake. Reality is probably the typical BS where attorney knows the evidence is not admissible but slips it in anyway and when caught expects the judge to just admonish the jury to disregard. In other words, jury, you saw it, you heard it, but put it out of your mind just like green elephants and purple bunnies. If it works, it's the best of both worlds for attorney. He got the evidence to the jury even if the judge tells them to ignore and the other side cannot rebut it without opening the door to actually make the evidence admissible.
posted by graymatters at 09:39 PM on July 15, 2011
Saying you want to ignore this type news and watching ESPN is sort of like reading playboy and complaining about the nudity.
+1
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:54 PM on July 15, 2011
So you have to turn the sports page, skip the headline, turn the station
yeah, yeah, yeah, I can skip the article, but it comes on the radio, it scrolls across the bottom of the TV, every other guy I talk to says something about it. Hard to block it all out. BTW, none of the guys I talk to say shit about the Anthony case.
Side note..with internet porn being what it is these days, does anyone really read Playboy for the nudity anymore? (not that I know anything about internet porn, mind you)
posted by dviking at 02:03 AM on July 16, 2011
This doesn't make any sense to me. From everything I read (beyond what the judge said) this was Law School 101. Every single attorney does whatever it takes to win except crossing a line that basically loses them the case. Whatever it takes doesn't work when what it took gets the trial thrown out.
graymatters is right. I'm sure the attorney didn't think the judge would call a mistrial for it or else he wouldn't have done it. He was gambling and lost this time.
posted by bperk at 09:11 AM on July 16, 2011
Now the question becomes whether or not there will be a retrial and whether or not it would constitute double jeopardy. Clemens quite possibly dodged a bullet here; or would rocket be more fitting?