This Thursday U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton declared a mistrial in Roger Clemens’ perjury trial. The ruling was in result over the prosecuting attorneys trying to introduce evidence to the jury that the Judge believed would prejudice the jury against the former baseball pitching ace.
Walton will hear a motion on September 2nd on whether a new trial would be considered double jeopardy.
Walton had the jury removed from the courtroom when the prosecution began playing the video from Clemens’ 2008 testimony before Congress. Clemens is accused of lying during that testimony telling members of the Congressional panel that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs during his 24-season career in Major League Baseball.
The prosecutors were trying to build a case that would have used testimony from the wife of Clemens’ former teammate, Andy Pettite, Laura, who was told about the conversation Pettite and Clemens had in 1999 or 2000 where Clemens had admitted to using HGH. She would have been used to help bolster the prosecution by backing up her husband’s account of the conversation. But because she did not speak directly to Clemens, Judge Walton declined.
When the video showed Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) referring to Pettite’s conversation with his wife, Walton was none too pleased.
During pre-trial hearings Walton instructed that such testimony could lead jurors to consider Clemens guilty by association.
Clemens’ defense attorney Rusty Hardin did not object to the playing of the video. The proceedings were stopped on behalf of Judge Walton. The attorneys approached the bench and spoke privately. It was during this discussion that Hardin acknowledged that the video was still frozen on screen in front of the jury box with a transcript of what was being said on the bottom.
The frozen image showed Cummings quoting from Laura Pettitte’s affidavit to the committee. The text on the screen read: “I, Laura Pettitte, do depose and state, in 1999 or 2000, Andy told me had a conversation wth Roger Clemens in which Roger admitted to him using human growth hormones.”
The jury was then excused.
