Clemens acquittal latest blow for sports cases

WASHINGTON ? Barry Bonds. Guilty on a technicality. As least that?s how much of the public sees it. It?s all that came out of a seven-year investigation into baseball?s home run king.

Lance Armstrong. Not even prosecuted. A two-year, multi-continent investigation brought to a close this year with no charges filed.

Now Roger Clemens. Acquitted on all counts. A five-year investigation ended with the top pitcher of his generation celebrating with family hugs inside the courtroom.

After three expensive failures, the government is done, it seems, with the business of pursuing high-profile cases of drugs-in-sports ? with a track record not worth bragging about.

"It was a tremendous waste of federal resources," said Stanley Brand, a long-time Washington defense attorney who was counsel to the House of Representatives from 1976 to 1983. "The juries that acquitted these people weren?t persuaded by any of this. That?s the man on the street."

With the government striking out yet again, the policing of drugs in sports now falls to other entities. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency filed formal accusations last week against Armstrong that could strip the cyclist of his seven Tour de France victories. Armstrong denies any doping.

Clemens, 49, was acquitted Monday on all six counts that he lied to Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs. The government had been pursuing him since 2007, when he was first mentioned in the Mitchell Report on drug use in baseball, and he famously and vehemently disavowed any link to steroids and human growth hormone at a nationally televised hearing in 2008.

Clemens? lawyers derided the hearing as a "show trial," and even some members of Congress at the time questioned the validity of the proceedings. But then-President George W. Bush had made the problem of drugs in sports a talking point ? even mentioning it in his State of the Union address in 2004. The FBI and Justice Department pursued a perjury case against the former pitcher that eventually involved 93 federal agents and officers. It carried over into the Obama administration, albeit without the head of the Justice Department?s criminal division, who stayed out of the case because he had represented Clemens at the hearing.

Attorney General Eric Holder also took no part in the case because he had worked at a firm representing Clemens.

Brand questioned why the aggressive federal investigators weren?t reined in.

"Where was the adult supervision from the Justice Department to control these individual prosecutors from trying to make hay out of things that didn?t fit the big picture?" he said. "They contorted federal statutes to try to convict these guys."

In the end, the government could only find one person who could claim firsthand knowledge of Clemens? using performance-enhancing drugs. He was a flawed witness, something even prosecutors acknowledged. Longtime strength coach Brian McNamee said he injected Clemens with steroids in 1998, 2000 and 2001 and with HGH in 2000, but his story changed over the years and his only physical evidence was kept haphazardly in a beer can.

Yet the case came to trial. The public perception that the government had better things to do was evident during jury selection, when many prospective jurors felt the congressional investigation was a waste of taxpayer money. One man used the word "excessive" to describe the 2008 hearings ? and he actually made it onto the final panel of 12 jurors.

The trial that lasted into its 10th week yielded less than 10 hours of deliberation over several days. After the jury foreman uttered "not guilty" for the sixth and final time, Clemens teared up. He and his four sons gathered in the middle of the courtroom, arms interlocked, like football players in a huddle. Then Clemens kissed his wife, Debbie, who was a defense witness in the case.

When Clemens went outside to speak to reporters, he fought hard to hold back tears.

? Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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