WASHINGTON — A federal judge rejected ex-baseball star Roger Clemens request to throw out perjury charges against him and says he must face another trial.
Federal Judge Reggie Walton set another trial for April 17 — saying that if Clemens wants to appeal, he must ask for an expedited request.
Walton said although he’s concerned about the prosecution’s violation of his orders by showing jurors inadmissible evidence, current law does not allow him to throw out the indictment.
Clemens’ lawyer had argued that prosecutors shouldn’t be rewarded with another chance, while the government’s attorney said tossing the indictment would be an extreme response to their inadvertent mistake.
“This case should end,” said Clemens attorney Michael Attanasio. “He’s been put through enough.”
Steven Durham and Daniel Butler, the two assistant US attorneys who tried the case, sat silently while the government’s side was argued by David Goodhand, an attorney in their office’s appellate division who joined after the mistrial.
Goodhand said throwing out the indictment would be a “very significant thing” and violate society’s interest that violations of law are dealt with at trial.
“There was an inadvertent mistake,” Goodhand said. “It is a mistake that we regret, but it is nonetheless a mistake.”
Walton stopped the first trial on July 14 after prosecutors played a videotape of Clemens’ 2008 testimony to a House committee in which he denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs.
Clemens is charged with lying under oath when he made those denials.
On the tape prosecutors were showing to jurors, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) pointed out that Clemens’ good friend and ex-Yankee teammate, Andy Pettitte, says Clemens admitted using human growth hormone in a private conversation in 1999 or 2000.
Clemens responded that Pettitte “misheard” or “misremembered” their conversation. But Cummings said Pettitte’s wife, Laura, had given lawmakers an affidavit saying that her husband told her about the conversation with Clemens at the time it happened.
Walton had ruled before the trial began that Laura Pettitte’s comments were inadmissible hearsay because she didn’t speak to Clemens directly.
When jurors began to hear about her statement, Walton quickly cut off the tape and admonished prosecutors.
At the time prosecutors did not say it was a mistake, but in recent filings to the court they said they said they mistakenly forgot to scrub their exhibits to comply with the judge’s order, made of the eve of the trial, in the press of other matters like jury selection and opening arguments.
With AP