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Baseball's Clemens Should Be Tried Again, Prosecutors Argue

"Prosecutors in the Roger Clemens perjury case say they made an honest mistake in showing jurors inadmissible evidence and the baseball star should face another trial," The Associated Press reports.

Back in July, on the second day of proceedings, federal Judge Reggie Walton declared a mistrial. As NPR's Nina Totenberg reported:

"Walton raised his usually calm voice in anger as he realized that prosecutors had failed to redact video and transcripts shown to jurors, and failed as well to turn the video monitors off while he conferred with lawyers at the bench.

"As a result, for several minutes, jurors could see quotes from the wife of pitcher Andy Pettitte, saying her husband had told her Clemens had admitted to him that he used human growth hormone. The judge had previously ruled that Mrs. Pettitte could not testify because she'd not heard the conversation herself. For his part, Clemens has said that Pettitte either misheard or misunderstood him."

Clemens' attorneys, the AP says, "argued the showing of the evidence was a deliberate ploy to invoke a mistrial because the prosecutors' case was going badly." But, the wire service adds, "the prosecutors say their case remains strong and Clemens wants to 'gain an unwarranted windfall from this inadvertent error.' "

Clemens, as Nina has previously reported, "is not charged with using banned substances. Rather, it's his denial of steroid and HGH use in testimony before a House committee that could cost him his freedom. He's charged with six different counts of perjury, false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation into the use of banned substances in baseball."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.