Jury selection begins in Clemens trial
WASHINGTON — Jury selection began in the federal government’s retrial of Roger Clemens on Monday with seven of the first 13 potential jurors interviewed asked to return Wednesday. Judge Reggie Walton, who declared a mistrial after two days of testimony in July, expects the trial to take possibly six weeks after the jury is selected. At the conclusion of Monday’s session, he admonished attorneys from both sides, Accused of asking them to help making false statements. expedite the selection process. Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, is charged with making false statements to Congress about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
WASHINGTON — Roger Clemens and his legal team went out of their way to make eye contact with 90 prospective jurors as they walked into the ceremonial courtroom at U.S. District Court on Monday, then listened for more than an hour as Judge Reggie Walton reviewed an 86-question survey that could lead to their inclusion or exclusion on the 12-person jury.
Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner accused of lying to Congress about his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs during his career, is being tried for a second time after a mistrial was declared in July when federal prosecutors introduced evidence previously excluded.
Walton, who also presided over the first trial, told the pre-screened jury pool that he anticipated the trial “could take up to six weeks once we have the jury selected.”
Walton said the court expected to interview 25 more potential jurors today, 25 Wednesday and the remainder, if necessary, Thursday.
The judge spent considerable time advising prospective jurors that they must avoid news coverage of the trial and asking jurors if they recognized anyone from a list of more than 100 possible witnesses who could be mentioned or called by either side. That list included Clemens’ former personal trainer Brian Mcnamee, former teammates Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Paul O’neill and Jorge Posada and baseball Commissioner Bud Selig.
Prospective jurors were asked, among other questions, if they were fans of Major League Baseball or had ever attended a game and if they’d heard or read about Barry Bonds, Ryan Braun or Lance Armstrong (prominent athletes involved in cases involving performance-enhancing drugs).
Clemens faces maximum penalties of 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines if convicted on charges of perjury, making false statements under oath and obstruction of Congress while testifying before a House committee investigating the use of performanceenhancing drugs. Sentencing guidelines appear to leave Clemens vulnerable to a 15- to 21-month sentence as a first-time offender if convicted.
During Monday afternoon’s questioning of a prospective juror, defense attorney Rusty Hardin gave some indication about his how his team might proceed. Regarding the charges of obstructing justice, making false statements before Congress and perjury, Hardin noted Clemens “would have to be wrong, know it to be wrong — essentially be mistaken with the intent of doing it.”