"Given how respectfully judge Susan Illston treated the jury at Barry Bonds' trial, it's hard to imagine her tossing out the lone guilty verdict at today's hearing (or in a future decision if that's the way she opts to rule). She'd be slapping around the citizens who gave up 3 1/2 weeks of their lives to serve her court, devoting nearly four days to deliberations.

But, at least to a layperson, the jury instructions for the obstruction verdict leave room for it to be overturned, either by Illston or an appeals court.

The passage of grand-jury testimony that led to the conviction captures the evasiveness of Bonds' entire appearance on the witness stand in 2003. Jurors who spoke after the verdict indicated that they saw the passage as part of a pattern of dodging questions.

But, by itself, the brief piece of testimony used to convict Bonds does not make him appear solely responsible for taking the grand jury on an exasperating detour. After listening to Bonds ramble through irrelevancies about whether trainer Greg Anderson had given him a substance that required the use of a syringe, the prosecutor didn't rein in the left fielder. He didn't restate the question and ask Bonds to answer it.

All he said was: "Right.""