Ed Rosenthal found GUILTY

[Torsten]

MEDICAL POT ADVOCATE FOUND GUILTY

Feds Score Big Victory Against California Law

A federal jury in San Francisco found Ed Rosenthal, one of the nation's most prominent marijuana advocates, guilty Friday of felony conspiracy and cultivation charges -- a triumph for federal prosecutors seeking to override California's endorsement of pot as medicine.

Jurors deliberated less than a day before finding the 58-year-old Oakland resident -- a columnist for High Times and Cannabis Culture magazines and author of more than a dozen books -- guilty of all three felonies charged. Rosenthal faces a minimum of five years in prison.

His wife, brother and daughter embraced one another and wept in the courtroom when the verdict was announced. Outside, demonstrators chanted and waved signs advocating his acquittal.

The verdict ended the Bay Area's first federal medical-marijuana trial, part of a high-profile federal crackdown that started immediately after passage of Proposition 215, the 1996 California initiative that allowed seriously ill patients to obtain the drug with a doctor's approval.

"There is no such thing as medical marijuana," Richard Meyer, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Associated Press. "We're Americans first, Californians second."

The only defense victory Friday was a jury finding that Rosenthal conspired to grow more than 100 plants and not more than 1,000, which would have carried a mandatory 10-year sentence. The 100-plant finding requires at least a five-year term, which could be lessened only if Rosenthal were to cooperate with prosecutors, something he has shown no sign of doing.

"We're going to fight this case all the way," he declared outside the courthouse.

Besides conspiracy and cultivating more than 100 marijuana plants, Rosenthal was convicted of maintaining a place where marijuana was grown. Federal agents said they found more than 3,000 plants last February in an Oakland warehouse leased by Rosenthal, but his attorneys argued that most of them were rootless cuttings that were not technically "plants."

Jury Foreman for Medical Pot

In a final twist to the trial, the jury foreman said he hoped Rosenthal would win his appeal.

"I am for the use of medical marijuana, as a number of jurors were," Charles Sackett, 51, a construction contractor from Sebastopol, told reporters.

"We just couldn't base our decision on that. . . . We followed the letter of the law."

Later, another juror called the verdict an injustice.

"We were made to feel like we had no choice, even though we were residents of a state that has legalized medical marijuana," said Marney Craig, 58, a property manager from Novato. "It seems like we made a horrible mistake. I should have stood up and said, 'I'm not convicting.' "

Craig said she realized how much information had been kept from the jury when she drove home after the verdict and read newspaper accounts that jurors had been told to avoid during the trial.

During a week of testimony, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer rejected every defense attempt to tell the jury that Rosenthal was growing marijuana for a San Francisco medical dispensary under the terms of Prop. 215. He also barred evidence that Rosenthal had been deputized by the city of Oakland to supply marijuana to a patients' cooperative.

A Touch of Leniency

Federal law, the judge told jurors, prohibits growing marijuana for any purpose. Earlier, he had disqualified prospective jurors who said their support for Prop. 215 would make it hard for them to follow federal law.

Breyer showed a more lenient side Friday, rejecting a request by Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan to revoke Rosenthal's $200,000 bail and jail him until sentencing, scheduled June 4. He set a hearing for Tuesday for prosecutors to press the issue.

Although defendants facing long terms are normally jailed after conviction, "this is an extraordinary case," the judge said. "It comes in the context of Proposition 215, the vote of citizens of this state, and the relationship of the defendant and the city of Oakland."

Defense lawyers said they would ask Breyer for a new trial and, if unsuccessful, take the case to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Hoping for a sympathetic jury in a liberal stronghold, supporters of Rosenthal demonstrated outside daily with tape on their mouths, handed out flyers proclaiming jurors' right to acquit, and jammed the courtroom. But prosecutor Bevan doggedly presented a textbook case of marijuana growing, and Breyer thwarted defense attempts to bring the medical marijuana debate into the courtroom.

[Wazron]

This is a travesty.

In America, there is a provision in law that even their Supreme Court doesn't want the American people to know, and which any breathing defence lawyer should know. An American jury has the right to render a not guilty verdict, even in the face of all evidence in the court. The council for the defence should have informed the jury of their right to acquit despite evidence!!

There is no way short of a stacked jury, defence incompetence or a crooked trial that Ed could have been nailed.

For references:

http://www.fija.org/

The jury has an "unreviewable and irreversible power... to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge... The pages of history shine on instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law. U.S. v. Dougherty, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1972, 473 F.2d at 1130 and 1132. (Nevertheless, the majority opinion held that jurors need not be told this. Dissenting Chief Judge Bazelon thought that they ought to be so told.)

"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence... If the jury feels that the law under which the defendant is accused is unjust, or that exigent circumstances justified the actions of the accused, or for any reason which appeals to their logic or passion, the jury has the power to acquit, and the courts must abide by that decision." United States v. Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006.

The most quoted instruction empowering a jury to judge the law comes from a civil case. In a rare jury trial in the United States Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Jay, speaking for a unanimous Court, instructed the jury:

"The facts comprehended in the case are agreed; the only point that remains, is to settle what is the law of the land arising from those facts; and on that point, it is proper, that the opinion of the court should be given. It is fortunate, on the present, as it must be on every occasion, to find the opinion of the court unanimous: we entertain no diversity of sentiment; and we have experienced no difficulty in uniting in the charge, which it is my province to deliver.

"It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen, to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other occasion, however, we have no doubt, you will pay that respect, which is due to the opinion of the court: For, as on the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the best judges of fact; it is, on the other hand, presumable, that the court are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are lawfully within your power of decision."

Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 1 (1794)

waz

[ 02. February 2003, 15:38: Message edited by: Wazron ]

[Auxin]

"An American jury has the right to render a not guilty verdict, even in the face of all evidence in the court."

Yup, 100% true. The reason for that is that a morally correct verdict (justice) is not always the same as a letter-of-the-law verdict so a law was made saying giving a verdict that is moral (justice) is legal. Moreover a judge can overturn a guilty verdict, but judges cannot overturn a not guilty verdict. The jury had a legal right (an obligation in my opinion) to find him not guilty, looks like the jurors should have read up on the law before appearing in court.

[Wazron]

Here's the quote:

"The judge cannot direct a verdict it is true, and the jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts." Mr. Justice Holmes, for the majority in Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U.S. 135, 138 (1920).

I'd plead for a mistrial on the basis of complete incompetence on the part of the defence lawyer. Especially in light of the fact that several members of the jury felt pressed into delivering the verdict they gave. Maybe ER's lawyers are just waiting for the appeal so they can do this at a later date and therefore make more money.

It says a lot about the law system in Amerikkka when they can get away with this sort of stuff (jury pressurisation).

I wonder if this right of the jury exists in Australia??

waz

[gomaos]

"There is no such thing as medical marijuana," Richard Meyer, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told the Associated Press. "We're Americans first, Californians second."

Yeah, sure, and today's America under bush equals the 40s Germany under Hitler.

Bush=Hitler

[Slarty Fart Blaster]

:mad: I really didnt expect anything less from this fucked up place.

Fact is scarier that fiction

www.clamormagazine.org/features/issue14.3_feature.html

www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=4136

[waterdragon]

it's getting to the point where the american people need to look at importing a tanker of tar and several containers of feathers. the bush crime family would be a good place to start.

[gomaos]

I second that!

[Auxin]

"Yeah, sure, and today's America under bush equals the 40s Germany under Hitler.

Bush=Hitler"

Nah, I say today's America under bush equals the 30s Germany under Hitler.

Bush=Hitler

Now if Bush gets re-elected then it will be like the 40s Germany under Hitler.

Remember how a single bullet and several bad treaties started world war 1? A decade from now we will be talking about how a few airplanes and several bad treaties started world war 3. Same thing, one bad thing causing a chain reaction of mass organized violence because our politicians dont really know the word peace (ever notice how they say pro-war and anti-war? Shouldnt the terms really be pro-peace and anti-peace?).