Marva32 said:
The testimony of a grand jury proceeding is secret only until a certain point.
Grand jury testimony is not secret. Witnesses are free to tell any newspaper or even the defendant himself whatever they testified to in the grand jury.
It's called the First Amendment. Ever hear of it?
Speedzero said:
The status of the case as a civil, rather than criminal, case is irrelevant to the perjury question.
The real point is that it was a case before a state, not Federal, court. Thus, the oath LA took was not authorized by "a law of the United States," which in this context means a Federal law. So, the Feds would have no jurisdiction to prosecute a statement in the SCA deposition for perjury. That would strictly be up to a Texas state attorney, who has pretty broad discretion to pursue it or not. So, some state attorney in Austin with no connection to the Federal investigation (and, probably, an overwhelming caseload already) would have to make an independent decision to go after LA for perjury. Not impossible, but probably not going to happen.
The lies Lance told in the SCA case can be used against him in federal court to show conspiratorial conduct to keep his doping program going. So while the lying
per se might not in and of itself be an indictable offense (i.e. perjury), it can absolutely be used as incriminating evidence against him in federal court to prove other criminal conduct.
runninboy said:
My father & grandfather both prominent lawyers with over 100 years of experience. The one thing they drummed in to me at a young age
"Anyone can bring a lawsuit for any reason whatsoever, it is up to a judge as to whether it has any merit"
They used to regale me with stories of preposterous lawsuits that were not only allowed to go to trial but succeeded. Sometimes judge's decisions went contrary to the law on the face of it but the judge would find some rationalization in order for the trial to go forward.
Also i have heard & seen of blatant miscarriages of justice. One of the worst involved an "open & shut" case. A woman ran a stop sign, and totalled my Mothers car, breaking her leg. The woman admitted fault and her sole defense was something along the lines of "the sun was in my eyes". she was at fault, caused extensive damage broken several laws and admitted liability. The trial had barely started when the judge took all parties into chambers, he turned to my mother and said"isn't your husband that big shot lawyer who wins all his cases?" my mother said yes and he said he was going to even things out a little by dismissing the lawsuit.
and he did.
When my mothers lawyer asked why the judge said "i dont have to give you a reason," and invited him to take it up with the bar.
I couldnt believe it, my father was livid when he heard, but that was that.
He explained to me that this happens everday, people bait your pride and if you take the bait they will ruin you financially. It is one huge chess game that most people should avoid.
Some judges make their own law. That is a fact and every decent lawyer in this country(US) knows it.
sad but true
so to reiterate
anyone can bring an action against anyone else for any reason whatsoever.
Sounds to me like the judge is corrupt and so is the bar in whatever state you practice. And how come your mom didn't appeal and bring all this up on appeal?
Or is the appeal court in your state corrupt too?
uspostal said:
If the cyclists talking to the feds now and still ride, say they doped, could the UCI then come in and suspend then. Just wondering if that is a possability or could cause then to be less than forward, or only answer what is directly asked and no more.
Chuck
So long as whatever doping they admitted to was within the 8 year statute of limitation of the WADA Code, yes.
QuickStepper said:
I'm not going to address admissibility or relevance. But the answer to your question is, assuming Lance or someone within the territorial limits of the United States has possession, custody and control of physical evidence, the Grand Jury (or either the prosecution or defense in a subsequent criminal proceeding brought following the issuance of an indictment) can cause the physical evidence to be produced by way of service of a subpoena requiring its production.
Whether the physical evidence could then later be re-tested by someone is probably not going to happen, at least I know of no authority that a prosecutor would have to compel that to be done. Both the physical evidence and the reports of any tests previously conducted by a testing agency could be subpoenaed. The real question again would be whether any of what is subpoenaed is either relevant to anything or whether it would be admissible at all (for a variety of reasons involving matters having to do with the admissibility of scientific evidence that are far beyond the scope of this question).
Simple answer: Yes, physical evidence can be subpoenaed as long as it's within the jurisdictional limits of the United States of America. The power to compel either the production of witnesses or evidence though does not extend beyond the borders of the U.S..
Not sure I really answered your question, but I think I did.
You are incorrect. There is nothing stopping a federal law enforcement official from obtaining Lance's urine samples from Europe (or anywhere else) and testing them. All they need is the sample.
The testing of evidence is not something any judge would be inclined to limit. Have you ever heard of a judge telling the FBI they couldn't dust a gun for fingerprints or run a DNA test on blood they have?
Why would running an EPO test be any different than a DNA test?
Why do you think the feds are in the process of getting Lance's urine samples from the '99 Tour that tested positive for EPO at the LNDD lab?
Colm.Murphy said:
This next item I'd like to see discussed regards evidence. Specifically, the obatainability of Armstrong's samples for further re-testing, values of his Bio Passport since he returned, and an assembly of his data from the past into the framework of the current Bio Passport.
Evidence has been covered previously, thanks for that, so if this is TOO much speculation built into this item, please simply ignore/delete this post.
Specific questions:
1. Would a US Federal court have the authority to force Lance or USADA to obtain or provide Armstrong's remaining physical samples, test result data over his history of testing?
2. If a US Federal court does not have the authority, who would?
USADA would cooperate with the feds to the extent that the WADA Code would allow. No need to get a court order from a federal judge. That's why Miller and Novitzky were in Europe..to try to negotiate with the LNDD to get Lance's '99 Tour samples, which tested positive for EPO.
Lance and his attorneys should have any problem with this because Lance has stated many times he wants to cooperate and that since he never took EPO, he would have no reason to object to further testing.
In fact, Lance has gone on record as saying he favors preserving his samples for future testing.
QuickStepper said:
[Edited on 7/30/2010 to add: I see that this thread was heavily edited by the mods. I was answering a particular question, which evidently was deleted. Not sure what I was answering, so this post really exists in a vaccum in terms of the comment "precisely". Oh well....I suppose the information is what was most useful. Still, I think it odd that this thread had to be that heavily edited....I was obviously responding though to some back-and-forth on the impact of someone asserting their 5th amendment right to avoid self-incriminating testimony and what inferences, if any, could be legally drawn by the exercise of that privilege]
Precisely.
Any target or witness called before a grand jury can refuse to testify if to answer a question might tend to incriminate the witness, unless the witness is granted immunity from prosecution. This is one of the fundamental protections of the U.S. Constitution's 5th amendment (the others are the right to be indicted by an impartial grand jury, the right to avoid double jeopardy--being tried twice for the same offense-- and the right to due process of law, i.e., the prohibition against being deprived of life, liberty or property without due process).
This is incorrect. You can still assert 5th Amendment right to remain silent even if granted immunity from federal prosecutors based on your 5th Amendment right against state charges from which a federal prosecutor's promise of immunity would not apply. Unless the state also signs on to immunity, you can maintain a 5th Amendment right in federal court to protect oneself against incrimination at the state level.
If this is a new way of looking at it, it's because most lawyers (and judges) aren't all that bright. So I don't care if this has ever been done before or not.
A federal judge would have to consider whether a witness has a right to assert their 5th Amendment right that is still left exposed to incriminating oneself in state court. You failed to take that into consideration and, as such, your answer is typical lawyer gloss.