Bonds jury deliberates with no sign of verdict

Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO

Jurors in the Barry Bonds case remained mostly out of sight on day 3 of their deliberations. They never entered Judge Susan Illston’s courtoom on the 19th floor of the Phillip Burton Federal Building, spending about six hours behind closed doors Tuesday without reaching a verdict.

Except for a couple of quick breaks and a timeout for lunch, that was it.

No questions for the judge. No readbacks of testimony. And no clues as to which way, if any, the eight women and four men who will decide the home-run king’s fate are leaning.

With each passing hour Wednesday, speculation mounted as to whether the jury even will be able to reach a verdict on the four charges: three counts of making false statements to a grand jury in 2003 and one count of obstruction of justice.

“I would say it is still early to be thinking about a hung jury,” said Douglas Tween, a former trial attorney in the Justice Department’s antitrust division and now a principal at Baker & McKenzie. “A general rule of thumb is one to two days of deliberation for every week of trial, so I don’t think this case is unusual at this point.”

The jury must decide whether Bonds is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt on each count. He is charged with lying to the grand jury when he denied receiving steroids and human growth hormone from personal trainer Greg Anderson and when he said that he allowed only doctors to inject him.

The obstruction of justice count is tricky because the jury must consider not only Bonds’ statements on injections, HGH and steroids but also four other answers he gave to the grand jury more than seven years ago.