cannabisnews.com: Six Angry People Regret Ruling They Had To Make










  Six Angry People Regret Ruling They Had To Make

Posted by CN Staff on February 09, 2003 at 09:29:27 PT
By Alexander Cockburn 
Source: Oakland Tribune  

The district attorney of San Francisco, Terence Hallinan, got it right. Last Tuesday saw a scene outside U.S. District Court in that city that was probably without parallel in American history. Five jurors plus one alternate (there were three more jurors unable to attend but in agreement) publicly apologized to the man they had found guilty four days earlier and proclaimed to the press their shame that they had been, as one of them put it, "manipulated, intimidated, controlled" by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer into finding Ed Rosenthal guilty. 
It was certainly one of the most moving scenes outside a courthouse I have ever witnessed: six angry people asking Rosenthal for forgiveness and declaring that they would be ashamed of what they did for the rest of their lives. The reluctant jury found Ed Rosenthal guilty the prior Friday of breaching federal drug laws. Within moments of leaving the court, the furious jurors found out what Judge Breyer had prevented Rosenthal's defense team from disclosing to them: that Rosenthal had been appointed by the City of Oakland under the terms of California's Proposition 215, passed by the voters in 1996, as the supplier of medical marijuana to people in chronic and desperate pain. One juror was thrown into such anguish that she spent the evening in tears and finally decided go to the press to disclose her rage and disappointment in the justice system. Over the weekend, in anticipation of Tuesday's hearing on whether Rosenthal should be jailed pending sentencing in June, their anger hardened into determination to make a public stand. These are people (a landscape contractor, a registered nurse, an airplane engineer, a property manager and a student working in her dad's trucking firm) who would have trembled a week earlier at the thought of facing press and TV cameras. When it came to it, at that noon press conference Tuesday, they all had the pure eloquence of people outraged at the injustice of what they had been compelled to do to Rosenthal, by dint of Judge Breyer's peremptory scripting of the federal railroading of Rosenthal. Charles Sackett, jury foreman, read out a letter of apology to Rosenthal. "I fail to understand," he said, "how evidence and testimony that is pertinent, imperative and representative to state government policy and regulation, as well as doctor and patient rights, and indeed your family, are irrelevant to this case. I wondered why the defense portion of your case was so brief as to be almost nonexistent. We as a jury were unaware that your counsel was being denied the opportunity to present most of your evidence and outside testimony." Other jurors followed Sackett to the microphones, tendering their personal apologies. Marney Craig pledged to do "whatever I can to get this verdict set aside and to see that Ed gets a fair trial with full information provided to the jurors"; Pamela Klarkowski, a registered nurse, dwelt on the fact that because Rosenthal's conviction had thrown into question the ability of people like himself to provide medical marijuana, cancer and AIDS patients were being doomed to years of pain. After the jurors came Matt Gonzalez, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a former public defender who invoked something that should be imparted in every civics class and indeed read out to every jury at the start of every trial (as Mendocino DA Norm Vroman once pledged to me he would insist upon, if elected): the fact that centuries of common law and court rulings have sustained the jury's discretion to decide issues of law as well as fact. Juries in the 19th century routinely set aside laws they deemed unjust and freed those accused of sheltering fugitive slaves, upheld freedom of the press and the right of women to vote. Next came D.A. Hallinan, who had made a point of attending the earlier court session. He roared out his insistence that "Ed did not violate the laws of California" and that "the feds had no excuse to trample over the rights of Californians." Perhaps the most moving moment of all was one that came after Sackett read out his letter of apology for the first time, in a more private session with the others jurors and with Rosenthal, his wife, Jane Klein, and daughter Justine. Rosenthal, remember, faces the possibility of many years in prison. When Sackett, a short, somewhat rotund landscape gardener from Sebastopol finished reading in his quiet voice, Rosenthal beamed at him gently and said, "I don't think you wronged me. You were as much victims as me. You were all victims of a judge who had a certain goal in mind." "This isn't devastation," Rosenthal said minutes later. "We're a political family. We live our politics. They chose the absolute wrong person." Justine, his 12-year-old daughter, later made a warm and composed speech of sympathy with the remorseful jurors who may have doo-med her father to hard prison time. This was an important political event in the wars over medical marijuana and the rights of those eight states that have passed medical marijuana laws. All Tuesday morning talk show hosts on San Francisco radio stations such as KGO were broadcasting advice to all future jurors in drug trials to exercise their discretion to set aside unjust laws and to vote their conscience. TV news coverage has been similarly sympathetic. Historically, independent-minded juries overruling dictatorial judges and setting aside bad laws blazed important new paths to freedom. Judge Breyer has set the sentencing date as June 4, much farther out than is normal. The nearly six months until sentencing should allow enough time for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to decide the appeal of another of Judge Breyer's cases that dealt with a similar question of immunity from prosecution in the context of medical marijuana distribution. If the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Judge Breyer's interpretation of the federal statute, as he himself said they very well might, it would guarantee that Rosenthal's conviction would be overturned. The public fury of Rosenthal's jury may well be an important factor."I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson.To find out more, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at: http://www.creators.com/ Alexander Cockburn is coeditor of the muckraking newsletter CounterPunch -- http://www.counterpunch.org/Source: Oakland Tribune (CA)Author: Alexander CockburnPublished: Sunday, February 09, 2003Copyright: 2003 MediaNews Group, Inc. Contact: triblet angnewspapers.com Website: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Ed Rosenthal's Trial Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmJudge Railroads Ed Rosenthal in War on Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15355.shtml The Right To Not Be in Pain http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15205.shtml

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Comment #4 posted by malleus2 on February 10, 2003 at 13:01:22 PT
The beginning of the end
at least in California.All Tuesday morning talk show hosts on San Francisco radio stations such as KGO were broadcasting advice to all future jurors in drug trials to exercise their discretion to set aside unjust laws and to vote their conscience.This is every fed judge's nightmare come true. The only thing a fed judge can do now is become even MORE tyrannical. Which will anger the voters even more. And lead to even less convictions. When the money from seizures drop because of lost convictions, the juggernaut will start slowing down to a crawl. Expect the walking pork roasts to scream ever louder their lies. which are falling on increasingly deaf...and irritated...ears.The sweet easy days are over, antis. No amount of dry cleaning can remove the stain you put on your souls by attacking the sick and dying. It isn't instant karma, but it'll do in a pinch...
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Comment #3 posted by Hopeful Freeman on February 09, 2003 at 13:36:58 PT
Hope in Numbers
 Most people know that this country was based on the idea of "For the people by the people." What people seem to beleive is that people no longer have any say over Federal Statute. Our laws our fallable because they are created by man. I beleive in our counrty. I beleive that the masses can arise and the past will be repeated. After years of injustice some people seem to think it is something that can't change, but others still know that people have power. We can still rise and be heard.  I beleive that after Carter couldn't legalize marijuana a lot of people felt the war was no more. They expected things to just work out. They thought wrong apparently. We saw thousands rise against the legality of GRASS. We knew much less than and we didn't have the communications abilities that we do have now. These days we have multiple sources for the lagimate use of marijuana weather it be a substitute for a recreational drink that can kill you in a night, or a medicine that makes you feel ill and weak. The clock is ticking on this issue. Cananda and Britian are realizing the horror of prohibition, and since they are so closly related to America it is scarring our federal overseers and giving hope to the sick. This case may indeed be our flight to freedom. The people of the jury, as dumb as thet may be, KNOW that what the did was wrong. They were told to put there American openminds on the side and herd in the cattle. The more people that stand up against it the better. We have the jurors saying the case was a farce. We have news media covering it, and we need more people screaming about it. Who will be our leader on this? Who will lead us against the tyrants? Where is our Washington, Jefferson, or our Ben Franklin? Who wouldn't stand behind a man that could speak for us? Who will be the one that shakes there right fist at Tyrany and spit in there eye? Johnson? Will it be one of the jurors that was duped into the horid verdict? Will it be a lawer that will speak FREELY to Magistrates?    Who ever it shall be must be strong witted enough to contol the media. Thats all we need, MASS PUPLIC OPINION. We control that, and we control the senators and anyone else who wants to try to save face(essentially anyone that needs to be voted to be where they are). In Enemy of the state the first thing they do is kill the enemies credibility. This will be tough and easy all at once... We know it doesn't hurt anyone, and they only thing about weed that causes harm is proabition itself. I know this as I'm sure most of you do. So lets tell the world that this Free County is tired of this polocy and we want our Freedom BACK! Back the way it was seen long ago. Lets make such a loud roar that they can't block us out by Killing the media, because it will be everywhere on the street.   Express your views to the public (family, work, or friends) it doesn't matter who hears as long as everyone is condeming the damn policy. WE will bring it to an end. The only thing holding us back is being reserved about the issue. We still have the Freedom to express our disagreements with the federal policy. Everyone wants to see Weed legal, but most are too afraid to say anything because of it's tabooness(which is dicipating expedicously). However, as long as it is legal to converse about public policy being changed, I WILL!
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Comment #2 posted by Truth on February 09, 2003 at 10:23:56 PT

Ed's conviction
As time goes on it looks like Ed's conviction might have been a good thing with the hornet's nest it stired up. I just pray that it gets overturned.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on February 09, 2003 at 10:21:25 PT

Quote from San Francisco Chronicle Article
AND FINALLY: We leave you with the words of medical marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal, who may be looking down the barrel of 10 years in prison for growing the illegal herb. "You know, smoking marijuana isn't addictive, but growing it sure is. It's such a fun and wonderful plant." 

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