Until Proven Innocent

Thomas Boswell, like many sportswriters, does not seem to understand the criminal justice system:

Ever since Balco broke in '03, my main worry has been that Bonds would never be convicted or exonerated or even brought to trial. Instead, he and his sport would simply be dragged into disgrace by leaked grand jury testimony. What if the feds, despite their time and expense, never built a case worthy of a courtroom? Yet their voluminous evidence, never exposed to cross-examination, might convince most fans of Bonds's systematic cheating. Now, we get a last act.

Oddly enough, my main worry after reading that passage is that Thomas Boswell might never be convicted or exonerated or even brought to trial for possibly ingesting illegal substances into his own body. Perhaps Boswell would enjoy a four year federal investigation of his own past, and the opportunity to exonerate himself in a court of law from ever having made any inaccurate statement to federal investigators about substances he's put into his own body.

Bonds may be a jerk, and may well have cheated to compete with other cheaters. There is something known as prosecutorial discretion, however, and none was exercised in the case of Barry Bonds.