The case of former San Francisco Giants outfielder and home-run champion Barry Bonds will resurface in a federal appeals court in San Francisco on Wednesday as his lawyers challenge his obstruction-of-justice conviction.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on Bonds’ appeal at the circuit courthouse at Seventh and Mission streets at 9 a.m. Monday. The panel is expected to take the case under submission and rule at a later date.
Bonds was convicted in federal court in San Francisco in 2011 of obstructing justice by giving evasive testimony in 2003 to a grand jury investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.
The trial jury was unable to reach a verdict on three other charges that Bonds lied to the grand jury, and prosecutors later dropped those counts.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston sentenced Bonds to one months of home confinement and 250 hours of community service, but delayed the commencement of the sentence until Bonds completes his appeal.
Bonds played with the Giants from 1993 to 2007. While on the team, he set the Major League Baseball career home-run record of 762, as well as the single-season record of 73, which he batted in 2001.
The three judges who will hear the appeal are Circuit Judges Mary Schroeder, Michael Daly Hawkins and Mary Murguia.
Julia Cheever, Bay City News
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