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Adam Thompson of the Wall Street Journal has a report about how Federal prosecutors obtained the names of over 100 MLB players from 2003 who tested positive for steroids and how it might have been a violation of the 4th Amendment as the method of searching may raise some interesting civil liberties issues.
The issue is that Federal agents may not have been authorized to obtain the names of the approximately 100 players when their warrant only specified 10 (still unnamed) players. However, the investigators came across the names on a computer they had permission to search. But how much of it could the Feds search.
"We were authorized specifically by the warrant to search every single file in all of their computers," Assistant U.S. Attorney Erika Frick said. "We took only one directory. We were authorized to search every one of those files."
But ...
Courts have often struggled to define which searches and seizures are "unreasonable." For instance, authorities are allowed to seize evidence that lies in plain sight, even in if they lack a warrant. In a less complicated criminal case, the doctrine allows, for example, police with a search warrant for drugs to seize an illegal gun they might see on top of a table."Normally we all know agents can look in a closet," says Fordham University criminal law professor Dan Richman. "This is a really big and interesting closet."
The government argues it needed to cast a wide net, gathering large bunches of files to make sure to find all pertinent evidence, not merely believing the labels on files in a computer directory. If during that check prosecutors came across evidence of a crime, they could keep it and use it.
The MLBPA is appealling to the case to a 15-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Previously a 3-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit upheld the legality of the search.
The case is United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. and I would link to the opinion, but it's a 115-page pdf and I think that's about 114 1/2 pages too long for most of us to read. Here's a FindLaw summary.
Jeffrey Standen
http://thesportslawprofessor.blogspot.com/2007/01/steroid-era-just-beginning-not-ending.html
Nope, that's perfect. I had forgotten to check your blog despite being over on the sidebar.
I don't know how the MLBPA should have handled it. There was no way they were going to be in charge of the testing. They wrote a contract which, had it been followed, would have been acceptable. Maybe they should have delineated the steps necessary to keep the program anonymous, but it seems like a stretch to require that.
http://tinyurl.com/ykj6jj
10 It wasn't clear to me from the synopses exactly who held the key that matched player names to sample numbers. Perhaps it should have been MLB holding that key for themselves, but I wouldn't be surprised if some law prohibits labs from conducting tests on (precious) human bodily fluids without direct knowledge of the source. I'm not a lawyer either, but I'd hazard a guess that if the information gets leaked, it would be the leak source that the players could go after for damages.
11 The article doesn't state what the 9th Circuit objected to, exactly. The directive seemed to be resentence and explain better. Maybe they agree with the prosecutors that 22 years was too lenient and there were insufficient written reasoning why?
I heard he's already lost to her in a belching contest.
16 I don't know that she was so much butch as just a bit funny-looking.
13 You may be right about the key, but one might imagine that the high-priced lawyers drafted an agreement that spelled out the entire process in all its gory detail, so the MLBPA could have agreed to this specific method. Or not.
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