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SAN FRANCISCO -- Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice but a jury failed to reach a verdict on three other counts that the home run king lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he specifically denied that he knowingly used steroids and human growth hormone.

ESPN.com's Mark Fainaru-Wada is live from the courtroom during the Barry Bonds perjury trial. Follow along with our up-to-the-minute Twitter coverage.

Following a 12-day trial and almost four full days of deliberation, a jury could not reach a unanimous vote on three of four counts, a messy end to a case that put the slugger in the spotlight for more than three years.

Bonds sat stone-faced through the verdict, displaying no emotion.

The case also represented the culmination of the federal investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroids ring. Federal prosecutors and the Justice Department will have to decide whether to retry Bonds on the unresolved counts.

Mike Hunt wrote:I was expecting a mess of a verdict where everything is open for appeal, etc. And that's exactly what happened. I have no problem with what the jury did. Obstruction of justice means that Bonds did something to keep the courtroom from getting to the truth. Perjury means that he flat out lied. If the jury deemed that Bonds wasn't forthcoming with relevant information regarding the case, why not agree on obstruction of justice (it's a pretty easy thing to notice too when someone's skirting an issue)?

Proving that he outright lied is a heavy burden and in this case, it looks like the prosecution failed to do so (despite there being strong evidence that he did). As such, I'm ok with a jury not coming up with a decision.