cannabisnews.com: Dazed and Confused





Dazed and Confused
Posted by CN Staff on February 04, 2003 at 19:26:46 PT
By Ann Harrison
Source: San Francisco Bay Guardian
San Francisco city officials say they have no immediate plan for protecting medical cannabis growers like Ed Rosenthal, who was convicted Jan. 31 on federal marijuana cultivation and conspiracy charges. Rosenthal, who is free on a $200,000 bond until his sentencing June 4, plans to ask the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for a new trial. In his court proceedings, he was prevented from telling the jury he was growing marijuana for patients under California's Compassionate Use Act (Proposition 215). 
U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer blocked Oakland officials from testifying that Rosenthal had been deputized as a city employee in an effort to immunize him from prosecution. He instructed jurors that federal law prohibits growing marijuana without exception, despite Prop. 215. "I was not allowed to tell my story," Rosenthal said. "If the jury had been allowed to hear the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I would have been acquitted." Rosenthal's attorney, Bill Simpich, is calling on California cities and counties to continue immunizing medical cannabis caregivers, since Breyer's ruling pertains only to the cases in front of him. Does San Francisco have a strategy for shielding medical cannabis dispensaries and growers from an expected wave of new federal prosecutions? "I think it's too early to answer that question," Board of Supervisors president Matt Gonzalez replied. Gonzalez said city officials are still meeting to discuss the issue as directed by Proposition S, which passed in 2002 and instructs officials to explore a city-run marijuana distribution program. "We are at that place where we are going to hopefully start having larger meetings and bring in some of the other supervisors who will likely be interested in the issue." Drug Enforcement Agency spokesperson Richard Meyer has made it clear that San Francisco city employees involved in growing or distributing medical marijuana will be subject to arrest and property forfeiture. Simpich noted that Prop. 215 passed by 78 percent in San Francisco. But he said officials are dragging their feet because there is not yet enough political pressure on them to take on the feds. "The single biggest thing that hurt us is in the case is that we did not have the cities of San Francisco and Oakland by our side," Simpich said. "They were not there, and if they had been there, we would have won. They made a mistake, and the time to correct it is now." Note: What does Ed Rosenthal's guilty verdict mean for San Francisco's plans to grow and distribute medical marijuana?  P.S.: Six jurors who convicted Rosenthal are expected to appear with him at a joint press conference this week to denounce the verdict. Juror Marney Craig said she and other jurors were appalled to discover that Rosenthal had been asked by Oakland to grow medical cannabis for critically ill patients. "What happened was a travesty," Craig said. "The more information we get, the more we realize how manipulated and controlled the whole situation was, and that we were pawns in this much larger game. As residents, we voted to legalize medical marijuana, and now we are forced to sit here and not take any of this into consideration?" To make a donation to Rosenthal's legal-defense fund, go to -- http://www.green-aid.com Editorial Extra Pot Verdict: Fight Back The conviction of Ed Rosenthal on charges of illegally cultivating marijuana should be seen as what it really is: a direct attack on the state of California by the Bush administration. U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer, who presided at Rosenthal's trial, refused to allow the defendant to tell the jury what he was really doing: The city of Oakland had essentially hired him to grow pot to distribute to sick people under Proposition 215. He's free on bail until his sentencing June 4 and is appealing his case. The Oakland City Council and San Francisco Board of Supervisors should pass resolutions calling on Breyer to depart from federal sentencing rules, which call for minimum 10-year jail terms. The cities should also be preparing to file amicus briefs to support Rosenthal's motion for a new trial and his appeal. And both cities should be developing a battle plan to protect medical marijuana suppliers like Rosenthal. A good place to start: Designate plenty more caregivers like Rosenthal as agents of the city, then get the cities directly into the medical pot-growing business (as called for under San Francisco's Proposition S) – and promise an all-out legal fight to support them. Let's see if the feds really want to indict the city and county of San Francisco. Source: San Francisco Bay Guardian, The (CA)Author: Ann HarrisonPublished: February 5, 2003Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Bay GuardianContact: letters sfbg.comWebsite: http://www.sfbg.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Green-Aid.comhttp://www.green-aid.com Ed Rosenthal's Trial Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmJurors Denounce Their Own Verdict http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15364.shtmlRosenthal's Federal Drug Trial Turns Surrealhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15303.shtmlThe Trial of Ed Rosenthal - Ann Harrisonhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15221.shtml 
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Comment #7 posted by Jimmyk on February 04, 2003 at 20:59:50 PT
An impartial jury
 
Could it be they're afraid we might read the Sixth Article of Amendment, which begins, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury ..." 
The high court, of course, now holds this doesn't mean what it appears to mean to us non-lawyers, at all. Rather than see the courts grow too crowded, her eminence Sandra Day O'Connor now informs us no trial is required if the state agrees to jail us for fewer than 180 days ... or even for fewer than 180 days on each charge. 
But crowded courts are a self-correcting problem, once all defendants are guaranteed a "speedy" trial. The correct answer is to force every case to trial before a jury within one week ... to ban all "plea bargains." (Do we really believe the cops arrest all those people on the wrong charges?) 
Forced to pick and choose the few cases they really have time to try, prosecutors would be forced (under the existing "speedy trial" provision) to promptly release the 95 percent of federal defendants who have committed no violent felony, but only violated some arbitrary bureaucratic edict. Aw, gee. 
And by the way, what's that word "impartial" doing in there? 
The British common-law jury system with which the Founders were familiar made no provision for the judge to ask potential jurors in advance whether they favored the enforcement of the law in question ... which is why the misguided government could never get any convictions in the North in the 1850s on charges of violating the hated Fugitive Slave Act, any more than a government saddled with the same jury system could convict William Penn in London, some years before, on charges of preaching a Quaker sermon. 
Importantly, it is only the defendant who is guaranteed an impartial jury -- we find here no guarantee that "the state shall enjoy ..." 
When the judge asks the jury pool whether anyone would have a problem sending someone to jail for smoking pot, or for owning an ancient collectable World War One machine gun without having previously submitted his fingerprints to the ATF, or for declining to pay a federal income tax on wages -- and when that judge promptly sends home anyone who raises his or her hand -- he is not empaneling an "impartial" jury; he is pre-screening a jury guaranteed to be predisposed to the government's case. He is violating the Sixth Amendment. 
The original term for a jury trial was a trial "en pays," or "on the country." The jury is supposed to represent a cross-section of our fellow citizens. Unless a law has broad -- 92 percent, actually -- public support, the chances are that a randomly-selected group of 12 citizens will include one member (8.33 percent of the panel) who finds the law a hateful abomination, and who will refuse to convict. Hung jury: Defendant walks. 
That is the meaning, and the intent, of the Sixth Amendment prohibition on government taking away our life, liberty or property without "a speedy trial ... by an impartial jury." 
And what about the Tenth Amendment, which specifies, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Any government official who declines to protect and defend these amendments, in their clear meaning, is a traitor, in violation of the sacred oath they all take to protect and defend this Constitution. Such persons should be indicted -- impeached, if they are high officials -- and, only if convicted by either the Senate or an impartial citizen jury, hanged.
FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED DEC. 16, 1997
http://home.hiwaay.net/~craigg/g4c/vin/vin-billofrights.htm
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on February 04, 2003 at 20:51:08 PT
The GCW
I would help you but I don't know how to answer your requests. Maybe someone else can help. 
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Comment #5 posted by The GCW on February 04, 2003 at 20:31:03 PT
FoM and ALL... please help.
Can someone display the address to the court and judge for sending Our own amicus briefs?Can someone help with that info and perhaps info on how to make the amicus brief extra effective?There will need to be a case # type thing perhaps... and We need to get all that info correct.Is there any reason not to send a personal amicus brief?
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on February 04, 2003 at 20:28:13 PT
Here is the Radio Program
It still is going on!http://www.kgoam810.com/
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on February 04, 2003 at 20:25:34 PT
The GCW 
I don't know what's next. Sometimes I'm glad I don't know. I'm listening to a radio program that is really good and it's about jury nullification sort of. Let me see if I can post a link.
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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on February 04, 2003 at 20:25:07 PT
From Bryan Epis
US CA: PUB LTE: Support Medical Marijuana Acthttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n182/a07.html?397SUPPORT MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACT I would like to ask the readers of the Chico Enterprise-Record to please write Congress and ask them to pass the "States Medical Marijuana Rights Act." You can easily do this by going to http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/medicalmarijuana/www.stopthedrugwar.org/medicalmarijuana/. It can be done in just five minutes. This act will allow people following state medical marijuana laws to not be thrown in federal prison for 10 years. It will also stop vindictive county district attorneys and sheriffs who despise California's medical marijuana law from conspiring with federal agents to circumvent California law, by prosecuting medical marijuana cases in federal court, where the jury isn't allowed to hear the truth, and isn't allowed to apply California law. I could never have been convicted in state court, and that's why my case was turned over to the federal government. According to a recent Time/CNN poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that an adult should be able to use marijuana legally for medical purposes, and Congress isn't listening to the American public. I am a Chico resident who was recently sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for the "crime" of "following California's medical marijuana law." I can be reached at: Bryan Epis, POW, 09636-097, 3600 Guard Road, Lompoc, CA 93436. Please spend five minutes to help me, my 8-year-old daughter and thousands of other California citizens who are being terrorized by the federal government. Thank you. Bryan Epis, Lompoc 
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Comment #1 posted by The GCW on February 04, 2003 at 20:18:34 PT
What's next? FoM?
ALL CITIZENS should also be preparing to file amicus briefs to support Rosenthal's motion for a new trial and his appeal. Can We display the address to the court and judge for sending Our own amicus briefs?I hope someone helps with that info and perhaps info on how to make it extra effective.Hope I don't miss it.
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