MLB Drug List Could Take Until 2011 to Resolve December 15
The battle that has resulted from the MLB’s drug list, an incident which has many American’s concerned about the government’s authority to seize drug test results, could drag on into 2011 and even farther. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals asked lawyers and prosecutors who represented the Players Association and drug-testing labs to submit briefs By November 25th addressing whether the case needed to be heard by all 27 active judges of the appeals court, if this occurs the results could take years to develop to a close. The full court of the 9th Circuit has not sat on a case since it began using “limited en banc” panels of 11 judges in 1980 so the request it highly unusual. Lawyers for the civil rights advocates and baseball union say the case is important as it could lead to operative ruling limits investigators’ ability to seize drug and medical records off computer hard drives.
An 11 judge panel ruled by a 9 to 2 vote on August 26th that investigators who raided baseball drug labs in 2004 didn’t have the right to seize a list of about 100 major league players who had positive test results for performance-enhancing drugs during the 2003 steroid test. The records of 10 players were obtained via warrant during a raid on the offices of MLB’s drug testing companies in April 2004. During that raid the records of hundred of professional players and thousands of who work for other businesses and sports leagues were also seized. Kozinski says that they overstepped the bounds of the warrant and persecutors allege that they were taken because they were in open sight. The 2003 test was run to evaluate how bad the rate of steroid use was at the time and players were told their records would remain confidential. In the course of the ongoing trial players like Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and others have been revealed to have tested positive at the time of testing.
Tags: 2003, baseball palyers, Celebrity Substance Abuse, drug tests, MLB, substance anuse