Remember that 2003 MLB steroid testing list, hotly contested by the MLBPA last year? That was a trial-run for PED testing in MLB players; if positives exceeded a threshold level of 5% of players, the MLBPA would agree to steroid and PED testing. MLB found 104 players with test positives, meeting the threshold, and thus setting in place MLB doping tests.
In 2007, the Govt -- the IRS -- raided the testing labs, grabbing the computer that held the database. The MLBPA contested the Govt grab, saying the data was confidential. Not so, says a 9th circuit court federal judge. All 104 MLB positive tests will be in the the legal hands of Govt agents investigating steroid and PED use. And expert say that those 104 names will eventually make it into the public reading. To the New York Daily News:
Government authorities can now use a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancers in 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday, shooting down the argument of the Major League Baseball Players' Association that the records were gained by unconstitutional means.
The union could appeal the decision, but the list is now a viable piece of evidence again - a grenade with the pin pulled out. "Chances are the government will now use that evidence," a lawyer close to the government's steroid investigation said yesterday.
Several implications arise from the legal decision. Barry Bonds may be on that list with a positive. If Bonds's name graced the 104 list, then expect that fact to emerge in court during his perjury trial. Also note, the Govt could pursue any other MLB player who tested positive.
"The government will get involved with them if a crime is committed," said one baseball source who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the legal proceedings.
The most immediately intriguing possibility is that Jeff Novitzky, the secretive IRS agent who gathered the test results in a 2004 raid on Major League Baseball's testing laboratories as he investigated BALCO, the steroid lab at the heart of the government's investigation, will use the list to prove that Bonds committed perjury before a grand jury when he denied knowingly using steroids. Even if Bonds' name is not on the list, the government could try to prove that the players involved in BALCO went there to get steroids, not supplements, as Bonds has claimed he did.
Meanwhile, the names are sure to become a hot topic.
"Ultimately we're going to see all those names come into view," said Peter Keane, a professor and dean at Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco, where the court is based.
Keane is almost certain the federal agents who fought so hard to maintain their access to the list will now seek to use it. If there's any remote chance that the list will help them prosecute an athlete, the agents will have to share it with the athlete's defense lawyers prior to the trial - and in the process make it all public.
That means the evidence will be officially registered with courts and on file, available to any interested citizen.
It may also be interesting to determine of Roger Clemens's name came up on the 104 List. Clemens's trainer McNamee met in 2004 to warm Clemens's agent about the impending 2004 doping tests. Did he know something about the 2003 test?
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The MLBPA contested the Govt grab, saying the data was confidential. Not so, says a 9th circuit court federal judge. All 104 MLB positive tests will be in the the legal hands of Govt agents investigating steroid and PED use. And expert say that those 104 names will eventually make it into the public reading.
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The MLBPA contested the Govt grab, saying the data was confidential.
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