[greymule]

It's also worth noting that the main purpose of jury trials is NOT to get at the truth, but to protect defendants from state power.

Protecting defendants from state power is the purpose of having a jury, "twelve good men and true" independent of the state. The trial itself is supposed to get at the truth in an effort to seek justice. The framers of the Constitution, well aware of the abuses of British courts, believed juries, as well as the adversarial system, to be key to that overall effort.

95% of criminal cases are plea bargained and never see a jury.

It's true that the system is so overloaded that almost everything is plea-bargained, including many murder cases (I doubt that it's 95% for murder, though). Thus both prosecutors and defendants often consider time and expense and risk over truth and justice. As for curbing the power of the state, don't think that innocent defendants haven't agreed to plea deals to avoid the expense of a trial and the risk of a severe sentence, since courts are known to make examples of defendants who force the issue to trial.

The framers of the Constitution acknowledged that they had designed a system suited for a generally law-abiding populace. They could not have conceived of a Newark or a Camden, where only the most serious crimes are prosecuted, and where the entire system would grind to a halt if even 1 in 20 cases went to trial. They also could not have conceived of anyone being permitted to pile up 10, 20, 30 convictions for burglary, robbery, assault, etc. Anyone aware of the horrendous home invasion in Cheshire, Connecticut, a few months ago knows that both murderers had more than 20 burglary convictions each yet were free to rape a woman and her two daughters and then burn them to death.

At any rate, my point regarding baseball was that whether or not this player or that would be convicted in court is irrelevant. Probably few or even none would be convicted. (And no player will face actual legal prosecution anyway simply for having taken steroids/HGH.) But the overall picture is clear: the truth is that many players took drugs.