It’s a safe bet that Roger Clemens’ favorite prefix in the English Language is “mis.”
Clemens said former teammate Andy Pettitte “misremembered” a conversation he had about Clemens using illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Then Clemens said what he meant was that Pettitte misheard the conversation.
A federal prosecutor played a videotape that referenced Pettitte’s wife, Laura, talking about that conversation that Andy either misremembered or misheard.
That was a mistake.
So the federal judge in the District courtroom declared a mistrial.
Clemens walked out of the courthouse, past all the misbelievers, leaving the prosecutors in misery.
Now government lawyers will have to go before the judge and claim their misbegotten evidence was simply a misstep and not misconduct.
Defense attorneys will claim it was a miscarriage of justice.
What a misadventure this turned out to be.
OK, objection noted. Enough of this mischief.
Comic relief certainly seems like an appropriate way to examine the bizarre circumstances on the second day of testimony Thursday at the Clemens perjury trial.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton stopped the trial after prosecutors showed the jury a videotape from Clemens’ appearance before Congress in 2008.
Rep. Elijah Cummings referred to Andy Pettitte’s conversation with his wife, and her statement to investigators.
“I, Laura Pettitte, do depose and state, in 1999 or 2000, Andy told me he had a conversation with Roger Clemens in which Roger admitted to him using human growth hormones,” Cummings read from Laura Pettitte’s sworn statements to investigators — the text of which was also displayed on the video screen in the courtroom.
Walton had already declared that Laura’s statement was inadmissible as evidence because it was hearsay — not direct knowledge of what Clemens said.
Walton stopped the proceedings, with the tape halted and Laura’s words frozen on the screen for the jury to see. The judge said he could not let the trial continue after the jury had seen that tape.
“Mr. Clemens has to get a fair trial,” Walton said. “In my view, he can’t get it now.”
The question remains that if someone had simply just shut the monitor off and not left the image of the words frozen on the screen, a mistrial might not have been declared.
A hearing is scheduled for Sept. ?2 to decide whether Clemens should face another trial.
All of this hoopla has never been about Clemens and using performance-enhancing substances. The perjury prosecutions of Clemens and Barry Bonds is to send a message to all of us that if you lie under oath to the government — whatever form that government may be — you will pay dearly.
It is a misdeed they cannot ignore.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
