Get off my lawn! wrote:
In the hypothetical suit above, one current athlete would be asked to testify against a current coach on behalf of a former athlete. The coach could plead the fifth, but witnesses could not.
I am not sure where you are getting that fact. Witnesses in civil cases routinely plead the Fifth, even though the wording only mentions criminal cases and defendants. For years, the Supreme Court has held that the Fifth applies to witnesses in a variety of settings.
Often, however, the claim does not provide an automatic bar to testimony. For instance, in Texas, the judge decides whether testifying "is likely to be hazardous" to the witness, where "likely to be hazardous" means "likely to subject her to criminal prosecution." If it is not, the witness will be compelled to testify.
This quibbling over the fine points of the law should not obscure the OP's basic point: It is a waste of time to talk about subpoenas or testifying under oath in this instance. That is because:
1) Because the USADA is not part of the government, it does not have the power to take sworn testimony. Anyone who lies to a USADA investigator cannot be punished for committing perjury, so taking sworn statements serves no purpose.
2) Based on the evidence that has been made public so far, it is very unlikely that the police or any other government investigators will get involved in these cases.
Pointing out these facts does not make one an apologist for NOP, or a cynic, or an enemy of honest racing. It simply makes one a realist.
I would only add that the NOP allegations raise important questions that deserve further discussion. Most obviously is the relation between "cheating" and "breaking the USADA and USATF rules." Take the case of albuterol inhalers. The WADA doping code explicitly allows athletes to take normal doses from an albuterol inhaler without a TUE. Some people, such as Lauren Fleshman, think it is possible to cheat without breaking this rule. They argue athletes should not use permitted drugs unless they "have" to do so for "valid" medical reasons. Others, such as Alberto Salazar, think it is not cheating to use inhalers as long as you can get a prescription.
These two views are well known, and respectable, among lawyers and judges. They obviously lead to very different views on what counts as cheating. It would be useful to have an open and honest discussion about the merits of these two positions.