How incompetent is the USADA?
 

This is not good.

One of the arbitrators is Clark Griffith. Mr. Griffith recently pled guilty (an Alford plea where he admits the state has sufficient evidence to convict him) to a charge of public nudity while trying to "pick up" one of his students. Salacious details here: http://www.twincities.com/localnews/...twincities.com

Now, this just makes him look bad. However, Mr Griffith was also quoted as expressing at least some opinion of the case, "He's really scrambling .... I can't wait to hear what the arbitration panel thinks of the evidence." http://www.startribune.com/sports/160869725.html

Mr. Griffith, if not biased, is at least an embarrassing choice by the USADA as an arbitrator.

This is a separate issue from whether Mr. Armstrong did or did not use PEDs. The issue is, when the USADA is putting together what may be its most important case, it chose an arbitrator who is an embarrassment and who cannot maintain a judicial demeanor when he is supposed to be fairly arbitrating a case.

another july only poster...

You have, perhaps, a substantive comment?

Sounds very impartial, doesn't he?

Still June

In The jurisdiction where I practice law we would not allow an Alford plea, or its equivalent, in a sex-related case. Either plea straight up or set it for trial.

I don't get the comments to the OP's post.

I dont think comitting a crime makes you a more or less impartial juror unless your crime was similiar to the one you are judging.

I wonder if cancer ate away the part of Dopestrong's brain that controls class?

His ability to play the victim while simultaneously indulging in a smear campaign is amazing. Matched only the ability of the Lance Zombie Fanbois to drink whatever Koolaid he serves up.

Ask Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Marion Jones how incompetent the USADA is. They go after the dopers and they do a damn good job. OP and his ilk ought to be ashamed for piling on to USADA for just doing its job.

Speaking of opinions about what people think of the evidence....

(legal-ish question here, not baiting the pro/con Armstrong crowd, I hope)

The bits I've been seeing in the media have USADA referring to evidence to follow, and Armstrong's camp referring to the absence of evidence (as opposed to inferences and conclusion) that has been put forward. One the one hand, I understand the complaint that you can only respond to specific evidence not broad allegations. OTOH, I would not expect all of that to be in the media and there is probably a time-phasing of disclosure that may be correct even if subject to a PR spin.

Do any of you in-the-know re these types of proceedings have a sense of whether the USADA is being competent in that regard, i.e. is the substantive disclosure of real evidence following established norms for the process (if not the media)?

No one can really know the complete bottom line but I can tell you several facts that are based on general concensus or testimony.

1. Lance has had three positive tests over the years. One was buried. One was covered with a back dated doctors prescription and one was tested years later and was beyond the statute of limitations. So he's lying about the never tested positive in 500 test's.

2. USADA has if anything been known to not speculate on evidence that was not very convincing and sound. Making them perhaps a little more lenient than some other countries equivalent agencies. This would seem to indicate that the evidence against Lance is pretty convincing.

3. The USADA is an administrative body or court and does not follow the same legal procedures that a civil or criminal court does. Lance is trying to spin the media in a way that makes it look like they are incompetent or not following procedure. The proceeding does not work in the same way as a court proceeding and most athletes that have been sanctioned have probably had a lot less non-analytical findings against them than Lance has. The USADA can not take away Lance's freedom or put him in jail. They can only sanction him from sports or take away placings in races.

4. The panel member fiasco is regretable but we do not know all of the facts about the case. There are sexual perverts everywhere. USADA may not have known about this affair. The issue is if the person can be objective. Probably not completely in the area of sex but since this is not that kind of thing it seems less important. ALso, the panel was unanimous which leads one to believe that the evidence against Lance is no small matter.

5. The fact the Lance attacks a panel member instead of being able to strongly refute any of the facts show that he is playing dirty because it's all that he has. This implies that he is both guilty and a person with little character. Which further supports the idea that he may have been involved with more than just personal PED use himself.

6. You have to understand that the amount of evidence against Lance is many times more than most athletes who have been sanctioned in the past when you look at the whole picture. The problem is that most people believe what they are lead to believe from the mass media when most of it is spin and misrepresentation. You combine that with hero worship and you have a situation were common fans are not able to be objective.

Well said. It's a little like saying that the Supreme Court is wrong on a 9-0 ruling because one justice had a parking ticket. Smacks of desperation.

And it should be noted that the OP posted with a "how often do you beat your wife" type of subject line. Smacks of the very game Lance has been playing - a game which is at long last very nearly played out.

Bonds, Clemens and Jones were never prosecuted or found guilty of anything by the USADA as far as I know.

I havent seen the failed test results yet from Armstrong. Can you post them here since you already have them, thank you.

You have to be joking. I think Surfer34 is correct about USADA having nothing to do with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, but I'm not sure about Marion Jones. In any event Lance Armstrong has been investigated and nobody found proof of wrongdoing. Yet our taxpayer dollars are wasted investigating him further even though he's not racing (ecept for tris and mt bike). The government spent huge amounts of money on Roger Clemens. NBC claims $10,548,772 and it was nothing. The government even had two trials.

I don't know about you but I would like to see the government take dangerous criminals off the street. I constantly see criminals walk away because the US Attroneys don't have the resources to prosecute.

The people in USADA and those that went after Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens want the publicity and attention and don't care how much taxpaper money they spend or how much time they waste.

I'm calling you to just prove one of your statements. Since you say Lance is lying and there's general consensus and testimony, prove it. What testimony? Since you are postitive, just cite the case or provide a link. That shouldn't be hard to do. Your claim is so precise, how about telling us?

All depends on how you define "wrongdoing," doesn't it? There wasn't proof enough to convict him of criminal wrongdoing, perhaps (and even that is apparently a matter of some contention, since a number of people involved in the case seem to believe there was a strong enough case to get a conviction). But there may well be enough evidence to prove he doped and sanction him as an athlete. And saying he's not racing "except for tris" is a bit of a contradiction, since the Ironman in Hawaii is a pretty big event with plenty of publicity potential for the winner.

Since you are so certain of other people's motives and that those people "don't care" how much money they spend or time they "waste," please post some proof here. Surely, you can provide some evidence, since you are certain enough to make such a dismissive blanket statement. Perhaps furthering their careers is indeed part of their motivation, but using that as a reason to completely dismiss their efforts is something of a poor rhetorical trick, given that advancing one's career forms at least a small part of just about everyone's motive on any given workday in America. I'm sure the prosecutors going after the "dangerous criminals" have their eye on elected office, or career advancement much of the time, and that this forms part of their motivation. Doesn't make them wrong, or bad people, or render their efforts null.
Personally, I want to take "dangerous criminals" off the streets, too. It's a darn shame that so many murders have gone unpunished as a result of the public funds diverted away to prosecute Bonds and Clemens, and that those murderers will remain free to kill because USADA has chosen to go after Lance. But I also think there's real damage to our collective culture that results from choosing to treat cheaters who prosper (and people who lie to Congress, and cheaters who try to destroy the reputations of those who call them out) as not worthy of correction or sanction. i want my 7-year-old to believe she's on a somewhat level playing field, regardless of what field of endeavor she chooses - whether sports or business or something else. I find the idea that cheating to succeed is not a big deal because it isn't murder pretty troubling.

Personally, I am just tired of my tax dollars going to fund this circus. Considering the economy, the national debt, balance of payments deficit, Obamacare, etc, I don't really give rip about what may or may not have done by the USPS team ten years ago. Give it a rest and concentrate on more pressing issues.

It is a pressing issue, but the USADA has no hard evidence, and that is why the investigation is a waste of time.

No positive test results, no paper trail. That is the problem.

Blood passport values. Watch and learn.

Personally, I'm very excited to see this taking place. An Agency doing the job it was tasked to do.
Obamacare? Really?
Lulz on da twit.

You want proof? The government spent $10.5 million, took years, had two trials, and the jury decision was open and shut.

It doesn't take rocket science to conclude tghe government had no/very week case and should not have even started it. But they did and I will leave it up to you to guess why.

In the case of Lance, you may think he's innocent or guilty but USADA should just have said thats enough. He's been proven not guilty from over 500 drug tests. Let's just leave it alone. Instead they are spending taxpayer money for no good reason. I would like this money to go towards better purposes.

Well, if that's the case, it doesn't say much about the desire to boost their reputations of the people who mounted the prosecution, does it? They set themselves up to fail in order to look good? Really? But more importantly, the facts you state don't do anything to prove that the people involved "don't care." And your facts say less than nothing about the motives of the USADA, since they had zip to do with Bonds or Clemens. So no proof for you. And by the way, the fact that Clemens wasn't convicted doesn't mean he didn't lie to Congress. I guess you think that's OK or not a big deal. Forgive those of us who do.
The missing link in this whole deal is the biological passport data. Watch for that aspect of the case to emerge. You have much to learn. Your lesson will come soon. Of course, Lance will spin his guilty verdict and put up a smoke screen. He always does. And guys like you will continue to eat it up.

you ride a madone, don't you?

you should know that clemens and bonds were both cases initiated by the doj, not usada, for perjury and obstruction of justice. i know, that disrupts your 'usada is a waste' narrative, but how would you feel if others started making similar guilty by association arguments?

p.s. the doj did have several successful perjury prosecutions stemming from balco including bonds on obstruction of justice, marion jones, trevor graham, and tammy thomas.

i know that the biological passport is the cover story on the usada letter, but the doj investigation, while not yielding a trial, did produce sworn testimony regarding lance and doping. perhaps usada has some very credible witness testimony that they never had before. this is speculative, but i find it interesting that those guys rumored to have testified all asked usac to not include them on the olympic roster.

I would have some sympathy for this argument if you were on every board on the internet decrying the misspending of taxpayer dollars. But I'd bet my retirement fund (what's left of it) that you're not. You're here, because it's really about Lance, and not really about "taxpayer money." "Taxpayer money" goes every day for pork barrel projects that don't do squat to solve social problems, but I don't see photos of you protesting that fact in front of the Capitol Building in Washington. But maybe you are, in which case it should be easy to provide proof: please provide a photo or a link that shows that you're really genuinely, deeply concerned about the misuse of taxpayer money in a wide range of instances, and that's really why you're here.
And by the way, the "500 drug tests" mantra you feel compelled to repeat is the weakest link in the Armstrong defense. Beating drug tests is not that hard. Pantani beat all the tests. Marion Jones beat all the tests. Now if you really want to make the case that they were both clean, well, then I'm all ears.

I agree. But I also think the passport data is what will ultimately prove the tipping point for CAS. In that respect, I think it's critical.

Lengthy interview with Michael Ashenden, which included discussion of bio-passport: http://nyvelocity.com/content/interv...chael-ashenden

From my post above (#13)

so what did you intend to do by criticizing the doj for wasting 10.5 million? did you not want us to extrapolate that because the doj went to trial and loss in one instance, that is proof that the usada officials are after publicity with regards to lance? dubious logic methinks. surely, then, you would not object if i made similar assumptions that because lance won 7 tours during which, 65% of the riders in the top 10 and 82% of the top 5 have been convicted or implicated in doping, that lance was also proved to have doped.

Your post? Correct.

Incorrect. He sat on the USADA review board that decided if the case should go forward.

Showing someone your wee wee doesn't mean you can't render a logical decision.



He reviewed the evidence and rendered judgement. Judges comment on cases after they have rendered judgement all the time. And the comment was after Lance tweated about Griffiths misdemeanor plea.

He's not an arbitrator. He's a member of the panel that reviews evidence and decides if it warrants moving forward. Sort of the doping Grand Jury.

See my above comment. He's done hearing the matter. And at the moment it's not even going to arbitration. The parties can either accept the charges or fight them. USADA is waiting for their response.

Clark Griffith was sentenced today

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/163886676.html

Not very credible per the judge. I wouldn't trust that guy to make line calls in a rec tennis match. Don't count me in the Lance fanboi crowd but USADA's antics sure push me in that direction. Griffith may have been on grand jury equivalent but everyone knows you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. I'm still waiting to hear how a body that wasn't in existence during his first Tour can take it away.