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Convict Bonds with Evidence, Not Charges

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by creamora, Nov 25, 2007.

  1. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Wait, I'm confused about one point.

    Once the case is over, the grand jurors are free to talk to anyone they choose, correct?

    Or are they sworn to secrecy for life?
     
  2. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I don't know. Is it a big deal? Why do we have any secret proceedings in a country that supposedly prizes a transparent and open justice system? I don't think it's that big a deal. If you disagree, I understand. But I don't know why people should feel threatened by openness and the truth being aired publicly. It's simply a matter of asking a witness to tell the truth about something. And why do we want this to be different than every other facet of our legal system which puts a premium on openness (the rationale being that when things are done in the open, rather than in secret, there is less chance of abuse)?
     
  3. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    A grand juror is prohibited from disclosing testimony.

    Really, only the witness can walk out of the courtroom and disclose what he had to say. Everyone else has to keep their trap shut. Defense attorneys aren't allowed in (which is kind of scary to me), so it isn't normally an issue. The reason Troy Ellerman, a defense attorney, had copies of transcripts is that they were preparing for a trial (before the defendants took plea deals instead) and the prosecution intended to introduce the testimony (i.e. -- make it public) in trial. The prosecutor had to disclose what they had to Ellerman because of the rules of evidence. Ellerman didn't violate grand jury secrecy laws, though. He violated a court order that said he couldn't share that discovery with anyone.
     
  4. Whether or not grand juries ought to be secret -- or ought to be at all -- is moot for the purposes of this discussion. They exist and there are rules that are supposed to apply.
     
  5. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    Thank you.

    With the witnesses allowed to talk, though, I wonder what the "expectation" of secrecy really is.

    I share Fenian's concern about the government subverting the process, but I also can't quite see how anyone can go in not thinking their testimony won't eventually come out. It will either be entered into the public record at trial or pieced together some other way, if someone really wants to know.
     
  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    This is true. And you pretty much posted those rules. Nothing in there says anything remotely resembling this perception that "the government has to protect a witnesses testimony from every becoming public," that people have stated on here. How can that be when the government usually has intention to use the testimony as evidence in a public trial? And in this case, it is even more than moot. No grand jury secrecy rules were ever violated (even though after Game of Shadows, everyone assumed--including me--that they had been).
     
  7. creamora

    creamora Member

    Ragu, says, "No grand jury secrecy rules were ever violated"

    Are you kidding? Why is Troy Ellerman in prison for two and a half years?
     
  8. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    For violating another court order. How would he have the information to leak otherwise? He didn't get it from the grand jury.
     
  9. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Hey Creamora, do you think Ellerman was the only person leaking GJ testimony?
     
  10. creamora

    creamora Member

    It's only my opinion, but the answer is yes regarding transcripts. However, it's my opinion that after the raid in September of 2003 and for the six month period before the initial indictments in February 2004, MOI's and other sealed documents were leaked by the government to Chronicle. For example, remember the leaked confession that was alledged? If there had actually been a confession, do you think it would have been necessary to give immunity to more than 30 athletes in order to get them to testify so they could get an indictment? Remember the "millions of dollars of cash" that was alledgedly received that was initially reported by the Chronicle. Is it not interesting that not a shred of evidence was ever found to support these initial reports made of any cash being received?
    It's called fabrication.
     
  11. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Not kidding at all. You know as well as I do that Troy Ellerman was not a party to that grand jury. Only the prosecutors, judge, stenographer, witness and jurors are in that room, and all of those people, except the witness, are bound by grand jury secrecy rules. Troy Ellerman wasn't in the room. He's a defense attorney. Even if he was representing any of those witnesses he wouldn't have been allowed in the room. Defense attorneys are not allowed into grand jury proceedings. How can he violate a proceeding he was neither bound by or was a party to?

    He's in prison for violating a court order that prohibited him from sharing evidence disclosed by the prosecution in a forthcoming trial (in which the defendants actually opted out of the trial and just admitted their guilt and went to prison as convicted felons). That has nothing to do with grand jury secrecy rules. You are deliberately trying to confuse the issue and make your typical muddled argument--which I am certain you know is false--because the disclosure Ellerman happened to have illegally shared was grand jury testimony. That doesn't mean he was a party to the grand jury or violated grand jury rules. He wasn't, and he didn't.

    That grand jury testimony itself isn't some kind of sacred, secret cow, the way people represent it, including you, because I believe you would like to make it into a faux important phantom issue to avoid discussing Barry Bonds. Even if Ellerman hadn't violated that court order, if those defendants had gone to trial instead of pleading guilty, the prosecution could have, and had declared the intention to, disclose at least some of that testimony out in the open in a public trial. None of those witnesses had any reason to have an expectation that the testimony they gave would forever remain secret. They had one obligation. To tell the truth. Right now the prosecution is alleging that Barry Bonds DIDN'T tell the truth, which is why he is being tried and faces prison time if he is found guilty.

    Troy Ellerman has nothing to do with whether Bonds told the truth or lied.
     
  12. creamora

    creamora Member

    The national editor of Forbes magazine, Michael Ozanian, has got it right. "Free Barry Bonds" "The indictment of Barry Bonds is a great injustice." There are smart people out there.

    http://blogs.forbes.com/sportsmoneyblog/2007/11/free-barry-bond.html
     
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