Jury Selected in Barry Bonds Perjury Trial
After five hours of questions, a group of eight women and four men have been selected to serve on the jury for the perjury trial of former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.
Opening statements are scheduled for Tuesday and the trial is expected to last four weeks.
The 46-year-old Bonds is accused of four counts of making false statements and one count of obstructing justice when he told a federal grand jury during testimony in December of 2003 that he never knowingly took steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston instructed the jurors not to watch TV, listen to the radio, read newspapers or utilize social media websites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter during the duration of the trial.
Before coming to court, the 100 or so prospective jurors were asked to fill out a 19-page questionnaire, with many of the questions pertaining to drugs and sports.
Bonds is the last of 11 defendants charged in federal court in San Francisco with either illegal drug distribution or lying in connection with the investigation into the sale of performance-enhancing drugs by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.
Photo Credit: Flickr user randomduck, via Wikimedia Commons
