By Juliet Macur of The New York Times
June 18, 2012
Roger Clemens, who intimidated even the toughest batters while becoming one of the best pitchers in baseball history, was acquitted Monday of all charges that he lied to Congress in 2008 when he insisted he never used steroids or human growth hormone during his long career.
The verdict, which came on the second full day of deliberations in United States District Court, was a significant defeat for the government in its second failed attempt at convicting Mr. Clemens and will most likely fuel criticism of prosecutors for investing time and money in cases involving athletes accused of doping.
As the six counts of not guilty were announced in the packed courtroom, Mr. Clemens bit his lip and appeared to wipe tears from his eyes. After the judge said, “Mr. Clemens, you are free to go,” Mr. Clemens hugged his lawyers and his wife. He huddled with his sons, who wept with relief. His lead lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said: “We’ve waited a long time for this. Long time coming.”
Mr. Clemens, 49 and a seven-time winner of the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in his league, had been charged with one count of obstructing Congress, three counts of making false statements and two counts of perjury in connection with his testimony to a House committee about whether he used drugs. If he had been convicted on all counts, he would have faced up to 30 years in federal prison.
Each day for nine weeks of the trial, Mr. Clemens had remained stoic as he sat at the defense table. But on Monday that composure crumbled. His hands shaking, he told reporters that he was “very thankful,” and he broke down when he began speaking about his 24-year career, which ended in 2007 with the Yankees.
“I put a lot of hard work into that career,” he said after pausing to fight back tears. A fan in the crowd of more than 100 yelled, “Way to go, Rocket!”
Prosecutors left the courthouse without commenting on yet another disappointment in the investigation or prosecution of high-profile athletes for crimes related to use of performance-enhancing drugs. Last July, Mr. Clemens’s initial trial ended in a mistrial on the second day of testimony when prosecutors showed the jury inadmissible evidence.
The United States attorney’s office in Washington sent a statement thanking jurors and prosecutors and saying, “We respect the judicial process and the jury’s verdict.”
Federal prosecutors in San Francisco last year obtained only one conviction on four counts against the former slugger Barry Bonds in an investigation that lasted more than seven years. He was convicted of obstructing justice when he misled a grand jury investigating use of performance-enhancing drugs among elite athletes. He was sentenced to 30 days of house arrest but is appealing his conviction. A two-year federal investigation of the cycling champion Lance Armstrong regarding doping-related crimes was dropped in February.
The jurors for Mr. Clemens’s trial — eight women and four men who described themselves as largely uninterested in baseball — declined to speak to reporters Monday.
Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who teaches criminal law at Columbia University, said the jurors who reached a verdict Monday most likely did not buy the government’s argument that what it cast as Mr. Clemens’s lies to Congress were so grave as to deserve prison time.
“The bottom line is some combination that they found the government’s case not proven, or proven but they didn’t really care,” Mr. Richman said. “Juries care about the nature of the crime as much as they care about the strength of the evidence.”
He said that to find Mr. Clemens guilty, jurors would have had to believe Brian McNamee, the government’s key witness. And Mr. McNamee, a former trainer for Mr. Clemens who claimed he injected Mr. Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone, was too tainted a witness.
“They had to wrap their minds around somebody whose motivation they probably couldn’t understand,” Mr. Richman said.
Andy Pettitte, the Yankees pitcher and another government witness, also provided testimony that probably damaged the government’s case. He told Congress that Mr. Clemens had admitted to him in 1999 or 2000 that he had used H.G.H., but backpedaled on the witness stand, saying he was only 50 percent sure of it.
The quick return of the verdict appeared to come as a surprise. Mr. Clemens and
his four sons were working out on the Mall near the Washington Monument when the jury announced it had reached a verdict, and they had to rush to change clothes and go the courthouse.
He and his sons left the courtroom red-eyed from crying, but laughing when Mr. Clemens asked them how his hair looked. “Sticking straight up, isn’t it?” he said as his sons smiled.
All along, though, Mr. Clemens said he knew even an acquittal would not salvage his reputation, which he said had been permanently damaged by the government’s accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs. How it will affect his place in baseball history is unclear.
His name will soon appear on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, but the damage to Mr. Clemens’s reputation in this case may keep him from receiving enough votes from baseball writers to win induction.
Mr. Hardin, the lawyer who had been at Mr. Clemens’s side throughout the Congressional testimony, investigation and the trial, said he hoped the public would view Mr. Clemens as a hard worker, not a cheat.
“I hope those in the public that made up their mind before there was a trial will now back up and entertain the possibility of what he has always said: using steroids and H.G.H. is cheating and it was totally contrary to his entire career,” Mr. Hardin said.
The government began its inquiry after Mr. Clemens was named in a 2007 report created by the former United States senator George J. Mitchell that exposed widespread steroid and H.G.H. use in Major League Baseball.
Mr. Clemens strenuously and publicly objected to the inclusion of his name in the report, which led Congress to call a hearing about drug use in baseball. He and other players mentioned in the report testified, with Mr. Clemens proclaiming:
“Let me be clear. I have never taken steroids or H.G.H.”
Prosecutors did not believe Mr. Clemens, and he was indicted nearly two years ago. The government portrayed him as a liar desperate to conceal drug use from the public so he could save what they called “his brand.”
Mr. Hardin said again and again that the case should not have been brought because Congress had overstepped its bounds. After the verdict, his defense team spoke with three jurors, who said they believed Mr. Clemens never used drugs, according to Mr. Hardin.
“They believed the whole thing was an abuse of the process,” Mr. Hardin said of the jurors.
In the end, the trial became Mr. Clemens’s word against that of Mr. McNamee, who claimed he injected Mr. Clemens with performance-enhancing drugs. Mr. Clemens said Mr. McNamee injected him with only vitamin B12 and the painkiller lidocaine.
Prosecutors conceded that Mr. McNamee was a flawed witness but said that they had enough corroboration of his story to elicit a conviction. The defense said he “cooked the books” to set up Mr. Clemens for a fall.
The jury took the defense’s side.