[anabolicrhino]

Attorney to plead guilty to leaking BALCO testimony - Yahoo! Sports

Can't they indict them for intent? These guys get off free and still make money on a book, which used illegal leaked information as the main body of work. Where is the justice? What's the point of having the law"

[PumpingIron]

You'd rather live in a country where your rights of free speech are questioned?

I'm glad this happened like this. Granted I may not agree with the subject matter of the book but I do agree with the fact that you should be able to say whatever you want, whenever you want.

[anabolicrhino]

Originally Posted by PumpingIron

You'd rather live in a country where your rights of free speech are questioned?

I'm glad this happened like this. Granted I may not agree with the subject matter of the book but I do agree with the fact that you should be able to say whatever you want, whenever you want.

I do live in a country where my freedom of speech is questioned! ... but, also protected by law

We must always fight to remind people and governments, that it is in fact your right to speak freely without fear of retribution.

The rights in this case that have been violated, are the rights of Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi.

They were told that they could speak freely to the Grand Jury and were legally immune to any retribution by the state. The state would protect their immunity by providing a venue where they could testify in such a manner as to where both their testimony and any perceived crimes to which that testimony eludes, would not be released to the general public, where it could affect their reputations.

The reputation of a public person is considered property and any aspersions toward their reputation could be considered a financial loss, which is a form of punishment.

That punishment is a direct violation of the immunity of the witness.

The freedom of speech is not the right to punish with speech!

Its important because the next time a witness is brought before a Grand Jury they may not testify, even with a promise of immunity.

[PumpingIron]

Yes, I do agree that Giambi and Bond's rights were violated.

but if I am getting this right, and I think I am. The two lawyers we getting punished for not relinquishing thier sources...which I think is another thing that should be allowed.

But this leads to a plethora of other problems, like validity...

[anabolicrhino]

Originally Posted by PumpingIron

Yes, I do agree that Giambi and Bond's rights were violated.

but if I am getting this right, and I think I am. The two lawyers we getting punished for not relinquishing thier sources...which I think is another thing that should be allowed.

But this leads to a plethora of other problems, like validity...

..just to clarify- the two persons in question are sports writers (Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams), they were indicted because they wrote a book that sourced its information(the crux of the book) from information that was relayed to the writers from a sealed grand jury testimony. Leaking sealed grand jury testimony is a crime(contempt of court). The writers were charged because they were, accessories after the fact, which is also a crime.

The state was pressuring them to reveal their source of the illegal information, as a plea bargain(drop the accessory charges) to get the name of the person who gave them the information.

http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news;_yl...yhoo&type=lgns

The person who gave them the information was a lawyer from the defense team(Troy Ellerman). once he confessed the state decided to use the writers as witnesses against the lawyer. When they decided to cooperate with the state the charges against them were dropped. This is standard operating procedure in the court system and is designed to make the system more efficient.

So, the writers who made a nice profit from their book get a "get out of jail free" card! Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi are marked for life....and the lawyer, he's looking at 2-5 years.

[PumpingIron]

I missed that part of the whole thing...how the hell did I do that?? I feel dumb now...

I agree with you. If they did something illegal like that, then they shold have to pay some kind of price...

[gators52]

Something being illegal and ethical are two different stories. What the writers did was wrong, however what the attorny did was a much worse offense, according to the law, and they can't convict the attorny without the help of the authors. The amount of money made by the authors should have no bearing in this case.