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The retrial is expected to last four to six weeks, with the first several days devoted to jury selection. The vetting process began with Walton taking more than an hour to read 86 yes-or-no questions to the entire pool, including "Do you have any opinions about Major League Baseball -- good, bad or whatever?"
Lawyers on both sides read a list of 104 people who could be called as witnesses or whose names could be mentioned during the trial, including former sluggers Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco; baseball commissioner Bud Selig; New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman; baseball writer Peter Gammons; and former Clemens teammates Paul O'Neill, Jorge Posada and Mike Stanton.
Perhaps the most important name is Brian McNamee, Clemens' former strength trainer, who says he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone and says he kept used needles that will be entered as scientific evidence at trial.
Clemens lawyer Rusty Hardin stressed to the jury pool that not all of those potential witnesses would be called, or else they "would be here about two years."
Hardin asked several of the potential jurors if they could conceive of a situation in which somebody says something under oath that he believed to be true, which turns out not to be, without telling an intentional lie -- raising the possibility that could be part of Clemens' defense.
Clemens faces a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1.5 million fine if convicted on all six charges. Maximum penalties are unlikely because Clemens doesn't have a criminal record, but Walton made plain at the first trial that Clemens was at risk of going to jail. Under U.S. sentencing guidelines, he probably would face up to 15 months to 21 months in prison.
[Associated Press;
Associated Press writer Joseph White contributed to this report.
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Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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