“Re: BONDS INDICTED
OK, I’m not a lawyer. . .yet, I’m just a third year law student at UCLA, took a clinical class, Grand Jury Investigation taught by two Assistant U.S. Attorney’s. Actually, one former AUSA who’s now a City Attorney for la, and one current AUSA, which is neither here nor there, but I don’t want anyone claiming I was hiding details. . . .but I do know something about this sort of thing.

Anyhow, I will have a law degree in oh, 7 months, not that I think you need to know this, just basically trying to prevent the talking out of my ass phenomenon.

The preponderance of evidence standard which someone alluded to (I think it was rainman) is the standard of review by which a prosecution (for fed cases, its Assistant United State Attorney General) must meet for a grand jury to return an indictment as a true bill, i.e. that is the preponderance of evidence suggests that it is more likely than not that he COULD be guilty of said crimes outlined in the indictment. The percentages attached to this standard is 51%, i.e., it is more likely than not, even by the slimmest margins, that he could be guilty of these crimes.

I’m sure someone has alluded to the adage that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. This is actually quite true.

In our mock trials for our clinical course, no GJ failed to indict on our rather sketch “evidence” against the “alleged” defendants. Our AUSAG who taught the class basically told us if he wanted one, he would get and indictment, he knew how to bore, threaten, cajole, i.e., make it very uncomfortable for a GJ to do anything less than return a true bill, and by the way, when you graduate, if you need a job, look me up.

There is no defendant present, no judge, just a foreman from the GJ group and a AUSAG. The room is under lock and seal, protected from any “outside” influence. It’s the most biased one sided presentation of evidence presented out of context and to look as incriminating as possible while not needing to have foundation, basis, etc. .

Getting a federal indictment is for lack of proper legalease, the easiest f&*%$#@ thing in the world to do.

Yes the grand jury is allowed to ask questions, yes they are allowed to become de facto prosecutors and call witnesses that may have some bearing on the case, etc., but any good AUSA, and mind you, they wouldn’t put a rookie on this one, on how to “control” a GJ rendering them powerless and inept mimes inudating them with countless documents and long testimony to bore the hell out of them.

They are drawn from a huge pool, asked to take (and I don’t exactly remember, I mean c’mon, it was class for carribean hackers sake) a year and a half of their life off to serve on this grand jury. They hear many many many cases in this time. Everyone gets indicted. These people just want to go home. For the central district of CA, it goes from OC to SLO area. Imagine having to drive, fly, or take a train to sit on a GJ panel and listen to Joe FBI agent talk about records from blah blah blah. Especially about something like obstruction and perjury. Not a murder homicide/robbery love triangle, but lame ass charges. From experience, as a “mock” GJ member, you tune out after about 6 minutes, thinking about ponies and grass fields and coming out your shoes one time in your softball game that night. You know you’re indicting them, its not a conviction, you’re not placing him/her in jail, its like its 51% likely that he/she could have committed this crime. Just let me go home.

Hell, with minimal evidence, I could be the second gunman on the grassy nole and I wasn’t even born yet. Catch my drift?

If the GJ fails to indict on the first try, guess what? A AUSAG gets to amend the indictment because the GJ can tell him what they will or will not indict the defendant for based on the evidence, and so they amend and try again. . .with the same GJ.

There are no leading of witnesses requirements. The testimony is sealed so charges of perjury, hyperbole, out of context statements and opinions based on gut reaction without any foundation are freely permitted because as you know all GJ foremen are specialists in the rules of evidence and can separate fact from opinion from the FBI agent interpreting calender records of Greg don’t drop the soap Anderson mind you, so the AUSAG is a loose cannon, doing things that would NEVER be allowed at trial, with a layperson sitting as the “foreman”. All to prove its more likely than not that BB could have committed OOJ or perjury.

The standards are low, the stakes are low, the AUSAG gets to say and do things without the presentment of any sort of defense. The threat of holding over a GJ for days or having to come back at a later time if they can’t agree on whether to indict or not, especially with little or no knowledge about how many times they presented this to a GJ, allows me suggest this is not earth shattering.

You got a GJ indictment? That is the easiest thing to do in our legal system. No defense lawyer, little or no rules governing appropriate AUSAG conduct (besides a “guideline” of principles from the AG, nothing at stake (not a conviction), and a system set up to scare the bedjesus out of GJ who fail to indict.

This is not a hard thing to do. We talked about this case in the class. People “in the know” called this a political witch hunt, the kind that makes careers for people if you catch my drift.

Not that I’m making unfounded baseless accusations, but I could care less. Any hack AUSAG can get and indictment. The fact that it took them this long, extending the GJ time for an extra 6 months twice (I think), which imagine living in SLO, commuting to downtown la two days a week for a year and a half after not being smart enough to admit your a racist or something to get out of service (yes I know it was in SF, example), and being told that you have to be extended because the AUSAG is going back to amend the indictment for the umpteenth time because you said I’m sorry, this doesn’t even reach the ridiculously low standard of preponderance of evidence.

I hope they go to trial. I hope the defense attorney for bonds assembles a kick ass legal team and tears whoever is dumb enough to accept this assignment to shreds, pointing out how much wasted time, effort, and energy, along with taxpayer money to prove that BB took roids. Hey, we get it, everyone knows he did. Get over yourselves. You think you’ll get some SF jury to say he “knowingly” took roids? He’s already tainted/tarnished, whatever. What pisses me off is that it means I probably won’t get to see him play again.

And that’s the real travesty in this situation. I don’t get to watch the bat pump, perfect timing of the pitch and after watching the swing, before the shot takes it to the path of the ball, knowing its gone.

Anyhow, this took way longer than I thought, and my last beer is wearing off, so I’m going back to drinking, but I thought it might be helpful/insightful knowledge for the McCovey bretheren (this includes women, sorry, no all inclusive legal term that isn’t masculineded). This is all from memory and I don’t have citations and shit, so if you want to check it, go look it up, but if you have ?‘s feel free. It was funny, in watching the ESPN 30 sec little deal on the website, the legal guy used the term “the prosecutions indictment.” My first initial reaction was you idiot, its the GJ indictment, not the pros, but in thinking about what he meant, he’s right, its the prosecution’s indictment. Presenting it to a GJ is really a formality. Everyone gets indicted that that pros wants eventually. Call me when you get a conviction.
For WilltheThrill, this is Jon Miller saying goodnight. . . .

by WilltheThrill on Nov 16, 2007 3:23 AM EST reply actions"