cannabisnews.com: Jury Rigging Jury Rigging Posted by CN Staff on February 06, 2003 at 21:04:01 PT By Jacob Sullum Source: Reason Magazine During Ed Rosenthal's trial, a defense witness mentioned that he had met the marijuana cultivation expert "in the context of Proposition 215." U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer interrupted the witness, instructed the jury to disregard his statement, and took over the questioning. The reason for Breyer's heavy-handedness was clear: He did not want the jury to consider the fact that Rosenthal was growing marijuana for medical use, which is legal under Proposition 215, an initiative that California voters approved in 1996. Since federal law does not recognize marijuana as a medicine, the judge reasoned, Rosenthal's motivation was irrelevant to the question of his guilt. ' Because no one disputed that Rosenthal had grown marijuana, the jurors felt they had no choice but to convict him of federal charges that carry a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. But at a recent press conference in San Francisco, five members of the jury, saying they spoke for at least two more, complained that they had been led by the nose to a result that was manifestly unjust."'I'm sorry' doesn't begin to cover it," said one. "It's the most horrible mistake I've ever made in my entire life." The foreman, Charles Sackett, said, "We as a jury truly were kept in the dark." That is not entirely true. After the verdict, Sackett himself told The New York Times: "I am for the use of medical marijuana, as a number of jurors were. But we just couldn't base our decision on that...We followed the letter of the law. We followed the court's instructions." At least some of the jurors clearly knew why Rosenthal was growing marijuana, although they may not have understood the extent of his cooperation with local authorities. The city of Oakland had asked Rosenthal to help supply patients who were not able to grow their own cannabis. It even deputized him as an "officer of the city" in an attempt to shield him from prosecution. "If I had known that he was told he could grow this by the city, that would have raised some questions for me," a juror told an AlterNet reporter. "It's a waste of taxpayer money to bring these cases." Another said: "The more information we get, the more we realize how manipulated and controlled the whole situation was...As residents, we voted to legalize medical marijuana, and now we are forced to sit here and not take any of this into consideration?" For those who believe the sole legitimate role of a jury is to determine the facts, the answer is plain: Yes, the jurors had an obligation to put aside their personal views about medical marijuana and apply the law as it was explained to them. But for those who believe jurors ought to judge the law as well as the facts, it's clear they had a duty to acquit if they decided the law, or its application in this particular case, was unjust, unconstitutional, or both. Many people, especially conservatives, are troubled by the idea of jury nullification, with its apparent invitation to apply vague, unwritten standards. But the Rosenthal case shows how this power, which has a venerable history in Anglo-American law, can help combat a far more dangerous kind of lawlessness. Whatever one thinks of marijuana's merits as a medicine, the Constitution simply does not give the federal government the authority to override a state's judgment on this issue. As Rosenthal's attorneys pointed out in a pre-trial brief, "the class of activity involved is entirely local and does not affect, much less substantially affect, interstate commerce." Although this is the strongest legal argument in Rosenthal's favor, in a sense it proves too much, calling into question not just the war on drugs but much of what the federal government has been doing since the New Deal. Hence it's unlikely that an appeals court will take this opportunity to affirm that there are limits to the federal government's powers under the Commerce Clause, despite the Supreme Court's recent moves in that direction. That leaves the task of defending the Constitution to juries. "I think jury nullification is going to be part of the answer regarding states' rights in future cases," Sackett, the jury foreman, told AlterNet. It seems Sackett first learned about jury nullification only after the trial. Ignorance of their own power may be the crucial way in which he and the other jurors were kept in the dark. Jacob Sullum's weekly column is distributed by Creators Syndicate. If you'd like to see it in your local newspaper, write or call the editorial page editor. Copyright: 2003 by Creators Syndicate Inc. Note: Ed Rosenthal never had a chance. Source: Reason Magazine (US)Author: Jacob SullumPublished: February 7, 2003 Copyright: 2003 The Reason FoundationContact: letters reason.comWebsite: http://www.reason.com/ Related Articles & Web Sites:Green-Aid.comhttp://www.green-aid.com Ed Rosenthal's Trial Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmMedical Marijuana: Blind Injusticehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15395.shtmlMisguided Marijuana Warhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15365.shtmlJurors Denounce Their Own Verdicthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15364.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #3 posted by SWAMPIE on February 09, 2003 at 03:38:56 PT MalleusII.... Righton/\write on........... These are the worst of times/best of times.....There will be big decisions made from these thoughts Iam proud to be part of them,as all who believe in the sanctity of law and the social aspects should.Our constitution was written to defend norml people from an overbearing govt,and it is time to shake it up a bit and let the others who choose to ignore life as it is get a new lesson. ONWARDTHROUGHTHFOG!!!!!!!!! [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by malleus2 on February 07, 2003 at 10:09:31 PT Blammo!!!!! Years ago when I taught rifle and pistol marksmanship, I used to tell those kids (some of whom are probably Gulfbound right now) that you shouldn't open the chamber on a 'hangfire' - a round stuck in the chamber because the powder didn't burn all the way. The pressure couldn't get out. It stayed there like a bomb and if you opened it, the backblast could kill you or maim you seriously.The feds forgot that. They kept shooting and shooting their cases at helpless defenseless people...until one day a round got caught...and this time, the idiots opened the chamber.The feds in general and the DEA in particular (they were the ones who started this nuttiness) have caught a hangfire blast in the face. Every time a ex-Rosenthal case juror gets on TV and says that Rosenthal ought to have a retrial where the rest of the facts can be debated, that he or she would have acquitted if they had full possession of those facts, that Rosenthal is not a criminal, that California laws should be respected as the constitution says they should, *that the feds are harassing sick, dying people and stealing their medicine*, the feds keep opening that chamber. And keep catching it in the face.They must really like pain.This has the potential to really shake things up. I've been going to DEAWatch lately, and their morale is as p*ss-poor as it's ever been, judging from the contents of the posts there. They have caught a blast from the Office of Management and Budget for being totally ineffective at stopping illegal drugs (surprise, surprise) and now *this* has caught them with their pants down; this will mean even *more* political trouble for them. They won the battle...and totally lost the war of public opinion in California. But not just in 'the land of fruits and nuts' as Archie Bunker might have put it, but elsewhere in the country. When even the normally Drug war cheerleading New York Times deigned to notice what happened, they came down on the side of *the patients*. Bad PR for fed agencies generally means low budgets...and personnel shakeups to reflect new political realities. It also means funding cuts; the DEA monster may be bleeding to death and not around much longer.Keep talking, you ex-jurors; you are making history every time you open your mouths... [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by John Tyler on February 06, 2003 at 21:13:49 PT Ed Rosenthal on Yahoo There was a link on Yahoo news today about the Ed Rosenthal trial. Usually Yahoo doesn't cover stories like this.Here is the linkhttp://news.yahoo.com/fc?tmpl=fc&cid=34&in=health&cat=medical_marijuana [ Post Comment ] Post Comment