Barry Bonds and Lab Results

In a recent case out of the federal Ninth District Court of Appeals, a federal appeals court held that the federal government is not permitted to merely submit blood and urine lab reports and present hearsay testimony of a lab employee - instead of presenting the actual person (Bond's trainer Greg Anderson) to whom Bonds gave his blood and urine samples. Given the fact that Mr. Sanderson invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not testify (he may have imlicated himself in a crime too), the Government was faced with having to have just the lab employee testify and have the lab results introduced as a sort of replacement for the testimony of Sanderson. However, the Court in United States v. Bonds stated that this was hearsay, and the Government could not use this method instead of the testimony of Mr. Sanderson. It is now assumed that the Government will have a much more difficult time in their ongoing prosecution of Mr. Bonds. We'll have to see what happens next.