False Statements, Perjury and Prosecutorial Over-Charging
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Between 1984 and 2006, Roger Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, was arguably the best—certainly one of the top five—pitchers ever to take the mound in Major League Baseball (“MLB”). Nicknamed the “Rocket,” Clemens’ 354 wins (ninth on the all-time win list) and his 4,672 strikeouts (third only to career strikeout leader Nolan Ryan and runner up Randy Johnson) make a compelling argument that he is one of the greatest MLB pitchers of all time.
Then it happened. Former Oakland Athletics outfielder Jose Canseco released his book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big (William Morrow 2005), and pointed the finger at a number of prime time baseball stars as steroid users, including Clemens. Canseco’s book spurred the congressional House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (“Oversight committee”) in March 2005 to conduct a hearing titled “Restoring Faith in America’s Pasttime: Evaluating Major Baseball’s Efforts to Eradicate Steroid Use.” Canseco and a host of other prominent MLB stars, including Mark McGwire, testified before the committee, either confirming or denying performance enhancement (“PED”) drug use by themselves or others.
Over the next year MLB reeled under one revelation after another about the magnitude of PED use among its star athletes. Home run and hitting records, as well as pitching wins/strikeouts, were being called into question. The word “asterisk” became routinely associated with Barry Bonds’ single season and career home run records along with McGwire’s smashing of Roger Maris’ single season 61 home run record. “Juiced” became part of our daily vernacular. It caught our attention last year.
In March 2006 MLB Commissioner Bud Selig asked former U.S. Senator and Ambassador George J. Mitchell to investigate PED use in major league baseball. The former federal judge and U.S. Attorney was imminently qualified to lead such an investigation. Twenty months later Mitchell issued a 409-page report titled “Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball” (“The Mitchell Report”).
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