SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Federal prosecutors urged a federal appellate court to deny Barry Bonds’ request for a rehearing of his attempt to overturn his obstruction of justice conviction.
The career home runs leader was convicted of one count of obstruction in April 2011 stemming from his 2003 testimony before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. That conviction was upheld last September in a unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the following month Bonds asked for a rehearing by an 11-judge limited en banc panel.
In a brief filed by the government on Wednesday, prosecutors said Bonds’ request “is based on a hyperbolic characterization of the panel’s opinion, inaccuracies about the record, and an incorrect conflation of the requirements for perjury and obstruction of justice. The panel’s decision is squarely in accord with precedent and raises no question of extraordinary importance.”
