United States v. Bonds

A panel of the Ninth Circuit previously affirmed Barry Bonds’s conviction of one count of obstruction of justice, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1503. The conviction arose from Bonds’s testimony before a grand jury about his suspected use of steroids. The conviction was based on Bonds’s rambling, non-responsive answer to a simple question. In this revised opinion, the Ninth Circuit vacated the conviction and sentence for obstruction of justice, holding that because there was insufficient evidence that Bonds’s statement that the jury found to be obstructive was material, his conviction for obstruction of justice was not supported by the record. View "United States v. Bonds" on Justia Law