The consequences of the error by the prosecutors -- the equivalent of handing in the wrong lineup card -- go far beyond Clemens, far beyond ridicule. Lance Armstrong, clearly in the government's crosshairs as the next steroids case to go to trial, must be laughing right now at the thought that these prosecutors who couldn't last a week in court against Clemens would have a chance against him.
The government and its lawyers lost credibility with the public for wasting taxpayers' money and for their sloppy work when it counted the most. And they lost credibility especially with the people who had come forward to testify. Pettitte trusted the government. So did IRS investigator Jeff Nowitzky, who compiled the evidence against ballplayers who used their celebrity to deceive the public and themselves. So did Brian McNamee and, in the Bonds trial, Steve and Kathy Hoskins. They trusted the government and its vaunted 95 percent success rate in federal prosecutions to justify their courage and the risks they took in lining up against powerful entities and former friends.
With an Armstrong trial on the horizon (he is expected to be indicted soon), who today would want to be a witness for the prosecution? Who would put his trust in the hands of federal prosecutors who blew a case by showing a video of clearly inadmissible evidence, an error Judge Reggie Walton said a first-year law student would not make?
According to eyewitnesses in the courtroom, Judge Walton was so enraged that he suggested that the prosecutors, by making such an obvious and unprofessional mistake, might have deliberately sabotaged their own case, that they had no confidence in trying Clemens, that they were looking for a way out instead of taking the honorable approach of dropping the charges or making a deal.
