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Things have not gone so well when it comes to the federal government’s probe into illegal use of steroids in major league baseball. The Barry Bonds case appears to be going nowhere. And this ruling could hurt other possible cases.

By Maura Dolan and Lance Pugmire
Los Angeles Times
The federal government illegally seized confidential drug test results of dozens of Major League Baseball players and must now return the records, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

“This was an obvious case of deliberate overreaching by the government in an effort to seize data” it was not entitled to have, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for an 11-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

During an investigation of illegal steroid sales by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a private lab in Northern California known as BALCO, the government sought the results of confidential drug tests of 10 players, including former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds.

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