simply orange wrote:
10 witnesses who say they saw you do something is more than enough for a murder conviction, even in the absence of a video, a body, or DNA "proof."
Witnesses are tricky in both organized doping and organized crime cases ... those in a position to witness events directly tend to be those who were also participating, to some degree, in those events. Which means there is an inherent credibility problem. Anyone who had firsthand knowledge of Armstrong doping almost has to have previously lied about doping, otherwise this would have come out right at the time. Therefore any witness who might today testify that Armstrong did dope can be attacked as a proven liar about doping. Just like anyone who can give firsthand testimony about the inner workings of organized crime is almost certainly a criminal, and so probably initially lied about their involvement.
So it really comes down to what your standard of evidence is, in terms of whether you will consider the testimony of people who have previously lied about doping.
I mean, unless there is a nun who on a one night's leave from her isolated convent years ago helped Lance inject himself one night during the Tour with a bottle clearly labelled EPO because she had no idea it was banned. Then she returned to her convent, where she stayed until last month, when she left the order, learned that EPO was banned, and said, "Oh my goodness, I must report this to the authorities immediately." Short of something like that, you're pretty much limited to the testimony of drug cheats (= liars) if you want firsthand accounts of people doping. Whether they're telling the truth or not is a different question.