http://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story?storyid=155306571Jury Finds Baseball Star Roger Clemens Not Guilty On All Counts
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By Eyder Peralta
Clemens was charged with lying to Congress about his use of performance enhancing drugs.
Monday, June 18, 2012
A jury found baseball star Roger Clemens not guilty on six charges that he lied to Congress in 2008 about his use of performance enhancing drugs.
As NPR's Nina Totenberg told us, the prosecution contended that Clemens needed the drugs to keep up with the game as he aged. But the defense struck hard at one of the prosecution's star witness, trainer Brian McNamee who was the only one who said he witnessed Clemens drug use first hand. McNamee testified he injected the pitcher with performance enhancing drugs. The defense used McNamee's estranged wife to contradict the trainer's testimony. McNamee also said he had exaggerated and changed his story when he talked to investigators in 2001.
The jury also heard from pitcher Andy Petite who indicated Clemens had told him he used performance enhancing drugs. During cross examination, however, Petite admitted that he might have misunderstood Clemens.
The AP reports:
"In reaching a verdict, the panel of eight women and four men had to decide whether Clemens's answers to questions from Congressional investigators and lawmakers were "material" or relevant to the work of committee "as distinguished from unimportant or trivial facts," according to the lengthy jury instructions.
"To find Clemens guilty of the obstruction charge, for instance, jurors had to unanimously agree that the all-star pitcher made at least one of 13 allegedly false or misleading statements on subjects including his use of vitamin B-12 and the circumstances of his wife's injection of human growth hormone."
This was Clemens' second trial on the perjury and obstruction charges. A judge declared a mistrial the first time around in the summer of 2011 after prosecutors showed evidence the judge had ruled inadmissible.
