Clemens Trial: NOT GUILTY

The government's closing was not enough to counter act the unbelievability of Brian McNamee and the overall taint of what was Congress doing to begin with.  Per my multiple early predictions: not guilty.

From the opinion page of the Washington Post: 

Roger never tested positive for steroids, and nothing in his medical records indicates steroid use. His massage therapists testified under oath that they witnessed no physical signs of steroid use. The woman who cleaned his apartment testified that she never saw evidence of vials, needles or steroids.
The Justice Department spent millions of dollars, with more than 90 federal agents interviewing 179 individuals and producing 235 interview reports in a futile attempt to find somebody who gave HGH or steroids to Roger Clemens. It found no one. In this era of celebrity tell-alls, that is remarkable.
Congressional committee hearings are ill-suited to function as courts of law. It’s easy to see what happened: The committee rushed toward a media-fueled hearing and panicked when Roger asserted his innocence proactively in the days before the hearing. Lawmakers over-relied on thin witness testimony and referred Roger to the Justice Department to save face. Inexplicably, prosecutors announced their intention to indict Roger before even interviewing the chief accuser.

Sidenote: Supreme Court issued a decision today in White v. Illinois.  98 pages long and may subvert recent advances in the right to confrontation.  Will write more expansively on this decision in the near future.

Clemens Trial: Jury Deliberates

It is now in the hands of twelve citizens.  Let us celebrate the right to jury trial.  The genius of the Constitution is exemplified by the right to jury trial.  They are the conscience of the community and the ultimate check on government power.

Apparently, AUSA Gilbert Guerrero gave a tremendous closing for the government.  Will it be enough? Will it be enough to counteract the juror who submitted the question that asked Brian McNamee: Why should we believe you?  Why indeed? 

I hold to my prediction: Not Guilty.

Clemens Trial Continues

A small setback for the defense and mainly a ruling that saves Congress some embarrassment. In the scheme of things, the jury is already aware of the dubious nature of the congressional hearings to begin with.  The real issue in the case is whether the jurors will believe anything that Brian McNamee has testified to.  This afternoon produced the following:

Lawyers for Roger Clemens today argued unsuccessfully to convince a federal judge in Washington to force Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to testify at the former baseball pitcher's trial on perjury and obstruction charges.
The attorneys, including Joe Roden, said Clemens has a right to question Issa, now the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, over his remarks in February 2008 about the merits of a congressional hearing about drug use in baseball.
Issa expressed concern then in statements to reporters about the underlying legitimacy of the hearing at which Clemens testified. Clemens’s denial of using performance-enhancing drugs is the heart of the perjury case against him in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton this afternoon refused to force Issa to testify. Walton said he was not convinced that Issa’s testimony was “competent” to challenge the prosecution's position that the congressional hearing was a legitimate legislative purpose.