Barry Bonds Black Home Run King Indicted.

Barry Bonds Black Home Run King Indicted. He has more to worry about now than an asterisk beside his name in the record books. Just three months ago, the Black Super Star from San Francisco Giants angrily defended himself against steroid allegations on the night he surpassed Hank Aaron to become baseball's home run king.
"This record is not tainted at all," Bonds declared. "At all. Period."
Barry Bonds has never been identified by Major League Baseball as testing positive for steroids. His personal trainer Greg Anderson has spent most of the 2007 in jail for refusing to testify against his longtime friend. His attorney, Mark Geragos, said the trainer didn't cooperate with the grand jury at all.
This indictment came out of left field," Geragos said. "Frankly, I'm aghast. It looks like the government misled me and Greg as well, saying this case couldn't go forward without him."
Bonds is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Dec. 7.
Government lawyers didn't notify Bonds of the impending indictment, a courtesy typically extended to white collar defendants so they can prepare for the public announcement.
"I'm surprised," said one of his lawyers, John Burris, who was notified of the indictment by The Associated Press. "But there's been an effort to get Barry for a long time. I'm curious what evidence they have now they didn't have before."
Defense attorney Mike Rains said he spoke briefly with Bonds but did not describe his reaction. At an evening news conference, he read a statement accusing federal prosecutors of "unethical misconduct" and declined to take questions.
"Every American should worry about a Justice Department that doesn't know if waterboarding is torture and can't tell the difference between prosecution on the one hand and persecution on the other," Rains said.
The indictment charges Bonds with lying when he said he didn't knowingly take steroids given to him by Anderson. Bonds is also charged with lying that Anderson never injected him with steroids.
"Greg wouldn't do that," Bonds testified in December 2003 when asked if Anderson ever gave him any drugs that needed to be injected. "He knows I'm against that stuff."
Prosecutors promised Bonds they wouldn't charge him with any drug-related counts if he testified truthfully. But according to the indictment, Bonds repeatedly denied taking any steroids or performance-enhancing drugs despite evidence to the contrary.
On Thursday,15 November 2007, his very freedom was put in jeopardy when a federal grand jury indicted him on five felony counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, charges that could result in a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison if he's convicted.
I am appalled at the federal indictment of Barry Bonds on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. Of course, lying to federal authorities is wrong and poisonous to the criminal justice system, if Barry lied.
I admire tenacious no-holds-barred prosecutors -- when they go after violent thugs, mobsters and would-be terrorists. The U.S. Department of Justice, however, has gone overboard in wielding its awesome might for years -- acting on a tip received in August 2002 -- to prolong a case it could have wrapped up long ago. The feds have crossed the line from closing a righteous case to prosecutorial overkill.
The charges against Bonds concern grand-jury testimony four years ago, on Dec. 4, 2003. Under grant of immunity (unless he lied), Bonds asserted that he never knowingly used banned steroids. He said he thought his personal trainer was treating him with flaxseed oil and arthritis balm.
And I wonder why the feds have put so much energy into this case, when there are so many truly dangerous criminals out there.
Why did the U.S. attorney take another four years to indict? If their case is so strong, what were they waiting for?
If they consider perjury to be a threat to the system, why wait years to go after a man whom so many observers believe lied to a grand jury? Doesn't that undermine the system's credibility, too?
Joe Russoniello was nominated to become Northern California's U.S. attorney on Thursday. Attorney General Michael Mukasey assumed his post this month. I agree with Debra J Saunders. They've both inherited this headache.
The indictment culminated a four-year investigation into steroid use by elite athletes.
Bonds and his lawyers long have accused the government of targeting a high-profile, unpopular player merely for political gain while pondering if the investigation was racially motivated.
Charges of leaks to the media and unethical legal behavior flew from both camps as the investigation dragged on and questions mounted about the government's intentions.
The 10-page indictment mainly consists of excerpts from Bonds' December 2003 testimony before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. It cites 19 occasions in which Bonds allegedly lied under oath.
Bonds, who surpassed Aaron's career home run mark of 755 on Aug. 7, finished the season with 762. A seven-time NL MVP, he also holds the season record with 73 home runs in 2001.
He is a free agent after being told late in the season that the San Francisco Giants didn't want him back next year.

Asked directly if Anderson supplied him with steroids, Bonds answered: "Not that I know of." Bonds even denied taking steroids when he was shown documents revealing a positive steroids test for a player named Barry B.
"I've never seen these documents," Bonds said. "I've never seen these papers."
The indictment does not explain where prosecutors obtained those results, but may have been seized when federal agents raided BALCO in September 2003.
At the end of the 2003 season, Bonds said, Anderson rubbed some cream on his arm that the trainer said would help him recover. Anderson also gave him something he called "flax seed oil," Bonds said.
Bonds then testified that prior to the 2003 season, he never took anything supplied by Anderson — which the indictment alleges was a lie because the doping calendars seized from Anderson's house were dated 2001.
Bonds has long been shadowed by allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs. The son of former big league star Bobby Bonds, Barry broke into the majors with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986 as a lithe, base-stealing outfielder.
By the late 1990s, he'd bulked up to more than 240 pounds — his head, in particular, becoming noticeably bigger. His physical growth was accompanied by a remarkable power surge.
Bonds is by far the highest-profile figure caught up in the steroids probe, which also ensnared track star Marion Jones. She pleaded guilty in October to lying to federal investigators about using steroids and faces up to six months in prison.
Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who is investigating drug use in baseball, declined to comment, but the Giants, the players' union, even the White House called it a sad day for baseball.
"These are serious charges," the Giants said. "Now that the judicial process has begun, we look forward to this matter being resolved in a court of law."
In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: "The president is very disappointed to hear this. As this case is now in the criminal justice system, we will refrain from any further specific comments about it. But clearly this is a sad day for baseball."
Commissioner Bud Selig withheld judgment, saying, "I take this indictment very seriously and will follow its progress closely."

Rare Robbery Case Renders Cries of Racism.

In Lakeport, California three young Black men break into a white man's home in rural Northern California. The homeowner shoots two of them dead — but it's the surviving Black man who is charged with murder.
Was it self-defense or murder? Was deadly force reasonable or unreasonable under the circumstances? Was the shooter a drug dealer? Had the three youths bought drugs from him before? Why did they go to his house looking to score some drugs? At what point did they disengage and flee for their lives? Why did he have to shoot two of them when he had already killed one? Was he really trying to kill all three fleeing youths? How many slugs did he pump into the backs of the two that he hit with his unsteady aim while under the influence of drugs? All reasonable questions that the prosecutor must have asked and answered before deciding to charge the fleeing unarmed Black youth with two counts of first degree murder!Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him solely responsible for all the bloodshed. This has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups.
District Attorney Jon Hopkins said that Hughes was responsible for "setting the whole thing in motion by his actions and the actions of his accomplices." Three young Black men broke into the Clearlake house of Shannon Edwards demanding marijuana and brutally beat his stepson. Two of the Black men, Rashad Williams, 21, and Christian Foster, 22, were shot in the back. Hughes fled.
Tests showed that Shannon Edmonds, the white homeowner, had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.
Hughes, the surviving Black man, was charged with first-degree murder under California's Provocative Act doctrine, versions of which have been on the books in many states for generations but are rarely used.
Hughes' mother, San Francisco schoolteacher Judy Hughes, said she believes the group didn't intend to rob the family, just buy marijuana. She called the case against her son a "legal lynching." "Only God knows what happened in that house," she said. "But this I know: My son did not murder his childhood friends."
The Provocative Act doctrine does not require prosecutors to prove the accused intended to kill. Instead, "they have to show that it was reasonably foreseeable that the criminal enterprise could trigger a fatal response from the homeowner," said Brian Getz, a San Francisco defense attorney unconnected to the case.
The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes' church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent Black.
Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed that Shannon Edmonds, the white homeowner, had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.
"This man had no business killing these boys," Brown said. "They were shot in the back. They had fled."On Thursday, a judge granted a defense motion for a change of venue. The defense had argued that he would not be able to get a fair trial because of extensive local media coverage and the unlikelihood that Hughes could get a jury of his peers in the county. A new location for the trial will be selected Dec. 14.
The district attorney said that race played no part in the charges against Hughes and that the white homeowner was spared prosecution because of evidence he was defending himself and his family, who were asleep when the assailants barged in at 4 a.m.
"I didn't do anything wrong. All I did was defend my family and my children's lives," said Edmonds, 33. "I'm sad the kids are dead, I didn't mean to kill them."
He added: "Race has nothing to do with it other than this was a gang of black people who thought they were going to beat up this white family."
California's Provocative Act doctrine has primarily been used to charge people whose actions led to shooting deaths.
However, in one notable case in Southern California in 1999, a man who robbed a family at gunpoint in their home was convicted of murder because a police officer pursuing him in a car chase slammed into another driver in an intersection, killing her.