Federal prosecutors asked a U.S. appeals court in San Francisco Monday to allow them to use crucial evidence, including alleged steroids tests, in the delayed perjury trial of home-run champion Barry Bonds.
The brief filed by prosecutors in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the opening salvo in an appeal that halted Bonds' trial just three days before it was to begin in the court of U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco on March 2.
Bonds, 44, is accused of lying about his steroid use in 2003 testimony before a grand jury investigating the sale of performance-enhancing drugs by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.
Prosecutors are appealing a pretrial ruling in which Illston said they can't use three positive steroids tests allegedly linked to Bonds and alleged doping calendars unless Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, testifies to authenticate them.
Anderson has told the judge he will refuse to testify, even she jails him for contempt of court.
The prosecutors argued in their brief that Illston "misapplied the federal rules of evidence, made erroneous findings of fact and imposed an unjustifiably high standard for admissibility" of evidence.
The appeal will delay Bonds' trial until at least the fall.
Bonds' lawyers have until July 1 to respond and the government can file a final reply by July 15.
After that, a three-judge panel of the appeals court will hear arguments and then will issue a written ruling. Its decision could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bonds set the Major League Baseball career home-run record while playing for the San Francisco Giants in 2007.
He faces 10 counts of making false statements and one count of obstructing justice in grand jury testimony on Dec. 4, 2003.
Among other statements, he is accused of lying when he said he never knowingly took steroids, never received testosterone or human growth hormone from Anderson and never was injected by Anderson.
