Note to Barry Bonds: enroll in law school -- soon

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A few weeks ago, the idea that Marion Jones deserved a presidential pardon for lying to federal investigators about her steroid use seemed ludicrous. The suggestion that Barry Bonds could be convicted of perjury and not serve a second in prison seemed even more preposterous. Now, both possibilities seem entirely just.Jones did six months in prison for her crime, after plea-bargaining and begging for forgiveness, albeit with crocodile tears. The judge in New York showed no pity. He even went so far as to say that he believed the erstwhile Olympic champion was still lying and deserved an even longer sentence than prosecutors recommended. Jones should have found a way to enter her plea in San Francisco, where Bonds will go to trial next year in front of a judge who recently gave two shameless convicts the equivalent of a misbehaving toddler's timeout. Tammy Thomas and Trevor Graham both received sentences of home confinement from U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston. Thomas got a lighter sentence even though she committed perjury, a substantially graver offense than Graham's lies to investigators, and prosecutors recommended a prison term of 30 months for her and only 10 months for Graham. She will spend six months in home confinement; Graham received a year's confinement and a $5,000 fine.Why? There is no answer. The court cases in the BALCO scandal have played out like "Wheel of Fortune," only more random. The only thing that's clear right now is that Bonds has won the grand prize. He cannot go to prison for perjury and obstruction of justice when Thomas, who hasn't expressed remorse and verbally abused her jury after the conviction, didn't. Jones certainly appears to have paid a stiff price for being one of BALCO's highest-profile clients. At the time of her sentencing, six months behind bars sounded appropriate. She had lied repeatedly and egregiously about using steroids and threatened the free speech of people who told the truth about her, suing BALCO founder Victor Conte for revealing her secrets.Worst of all, she received immunity on the crime of steroid use in exchange for providing honest evidence against the dealers, but she arrogantly squandered that free pass. Defenders of the athletes charged in this case tend to forget that they all could have walked if they had restricted themselves to one criminal act.But Thomas did no less than Jones. She doped and lied. She also forced the government to take her case to trial, which technically should have yielded a longer sentence than Jones' plea bargain. But apparently, high-stakes gambles with the law in San Francisco are cheaper than folding early in New York.At Thomas' sentencing hearing, the judge said it seemed wrong to imprison her for longer than Conte, the central conspirator. That reasoning might have made sense if A) There were no distinction between pleas and jury trials, or B) The judge had given her a lighter prison sentence rather than sending her to her room, or C) Thomas had been prosecuted for steroid use, rather than lying about it under oath after she had tested positive twice and been banned for life from her sport. But somehow, Thomas cut a sympathetic figure in front of the judge. That wasn't entirely surprising. The ex-cyclist is, to put it mildly, a little off. Her tirade at the jury ("Look me in the eye. ... No, look me in the eye.") suggested serious instability, as did the defense's plea to keep her out of prison for medical reasons, including the need for psychotropic drugs.If Thomas had been forced at sentencing to tell the truth about her steroid use, she might also have been asked whether the need for psychotropic drugs arose after she ingested hormones to advance her athletic career. That information could have been very enlightening, especially in the absence of hard information about the health effects of steroid use.The judge let it slide. She said Thomas had suffered enough, in part because the felony conviction cost the law student her chance to join the bar. Jones' argument that she already had been stripped of her Olympic medals and that she had two children at home carried no such weight. As Bonds awaits trial, he does have to worry about the one distinction between him and Thomas. He faces 15 criminal counts, whereas she was convicted of four. But he can do something to protect himself. No, not plea-bargain. He'd be a fool to do that now. He should enroll in law school immediately.(E-mail Gwen Knapp at gknapp(at)sfchronicle.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)