THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that agents had no right to seize baseball's anonymous drug-testing results from 2003, an infamous list that tarnished America's pastime and some of its biggest stars.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for the players' union, which has argued for years to have the results of the 104 players who allegedly tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 returned.
"This was an obvious case of deliberate overreaching by the government in an effort to seize data as to which it lacked probable cause," Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in the 9-2 decision.
Barring a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the test results and samples will be destroyed, and prosecutors cannot use the information. Union lawyers said the government returned the evidence shortly after earlier trial court rulings.
The panel said federal agents trampled on players' protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, though the ruling came too late to spare players linked to the list, including Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, who admitted they were on it.
Ortiz said he didn't care about the ruling, adding it won't help him almost a month after his name was leaked.
Atlanta star Chipper Jones agreed.
"It doesn't matter now," Jones said. "The names are already out there in the general public. We've already got a number out there. It's not going to be over until it's all out there."
Kozinski said the players' union had good reason to want to keep the list under wraps.
"The risk to the players associated with disclosure, and with that the ability of the Players Association to obtain voluntary compliance with drug testing from its members in the future, is very high," the judge wrote. "Indeed, some players appear to have already suffered this very harm as a result of the government's seizure."
The government seized the samples and records in April 2004 from baseball's drug-testing companies as part of the BALCO investigation into Barry Bonds and others. The list of 104 players said to have tested positive, attached to a grand jury subpoena, has been part of a five-year legal fight, with the players' union trying to force the government to return what federal agents took during raids.
Kozinski said the case was a significant test of the government's search and seizure powers in the digital age, and issued guidelines for investigators to follow in future raids that included submitting computers to independent computer experts for sorting of data.
The ruling vastly curtailed the federal government's performance-enhancing drug investigation. Federal prosecutors had maintained they wanted the names to investigate the players' drug sources, which could have kept alive a massive investigation started by a Dumpster-diving agent.
Instead, Wednesday's ruling means investigators are barred from accessing any names except for the 10 players listed on a 2004 search warrant. The names of those 10 have never been released, but the government said they had ties to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
BALCO founder Victor Conte has long been critical of the actions of the government, especially then-lead investigator Jeff Novitzky.
"I have said that Novitzky has been using illegal tactics and not following the law since the day of the BALCO raid," Conte said. "He seems to just make up his own rules as he goes along."
U.S. attorney spokesman Jack Gillund in San Francisco said the government was reviewing its options, which could include an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
