cannabisnews.com: A Kangaroo Court A Kangaroo Court Posted by CN Staff on February 11, 2003 at 14:34:07 PT Editorial Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal John Adams, who would become our second president, said of the juror: "It is not only his right, but his duty ... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." And we all know, of course, that juries are supposed to be randomly selected, not stacked with those who will agree in advance to convict. Yet in San Francisco last month, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sorted through 80 people before settling on 12 -- mostly out-of-towners -- who appeared most likely to bring the conviction he sought against Oakland's self-styled "pot guru," 58-year-old Ed Rosenthal. After a two-week trial, that jury on Jan. 31 unanimously convicted Mr. Rosenthal after finding as a matter of fact that he'd been growing more than 100 pot plants, conspired to cultivate marijuana, and maintained an Oakland warehouse for a growing operation. Mr. Rosenthal and his attorneys presented little defense. That's because, "Throughout the trial, (Judge) Breyer had refused all efforts by the defense to disclose to the jury that Rosenthal was growing marijuana ... for the city of Oakland's medical marijuana program, authorized under California's Proposition 215, passed by the voters in 1996," points out syndicated columnist Alexander Cockburn. In other words, and as usual these days, the federal courts worked to conceal as much of the truth of the case as they saw fit, to make sure the jury made only a finding of fact, without being given any chance to decide whether the federal law was being appropriately applied in Mr. Rosenthal's case. "Within hours of finding ... Rosenthal guilty on three felony counts of conspiracy and marijuana cultivation," Mr. Cockburn relates, "a sobbing juror was overheard saying she and others jurors had been terrified that ... Breyer would throw them in prison if they had found Rosenthal innocent, although she herself had had a strong disposition to do so. ... "Breyer effectively denied Rosenthal the most basic right of all, that of being able to confront his accusers," Mr. Cockburn points out. "The inability to confront your accuser means in essence you have to endure the accusations of the state, without the ability to respond." Learning only after the trial that Mr. Rosenthal (who now faces up to 85 years in federal prison) had been authorized by Oakland to grow marijuana for medical patients properly registered with the city to receive the pot, juror Marney Craig further commented: "I feel like I made the biggest mistake in my life. We convicted a man who is not a criminal." Jury foreman Charles Sackett, 51, of Sebastopol, said he hopes Rosenthal's case is overturned on appeal. "Of course the jury, like all juries, had the right to consult their consciences and set the law aside," points out Mr. Cockburn, "but such is the deplorable state of civics instruction today, and such is the dictatorial propensity of judges and the hostility or indifference of elite opinion that the fundamental principle of jury discretion, the foundation stone of freedom, is barely known." Mr. Rosenthal called Breyer's courtroom a "kangaroo court." It was.Quote: 'They would have acquitted me if they'd been permitted to hear my story'Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)Published: Monday, February 10, 2003Copyright: 2003 Las Vegas Review-JournalContact: letters lvrj.comWebsite: http://www.lvrj.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Green-Aid.comhttp://www.green-aid.com Ed Rosenthal's Trial Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmThe Feds Versus Ed - San Francisco Examinerhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15452.shtmlWill Rosenthal Case Destroy MMJ Enforcement?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15442.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #5 posted by The GCW on February 11, 2003 at 19:01:34 PT War Down Under Nimbin as Iraqhttp://www.hempbc.com/articles/2828.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by The GCW on February 11, 2003 at 18:51:10 PT stats... "Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn't like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton." - Jay Leno - [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by p4me on February 11, 2003 at 17:23:52 PT Conference in Merida starts tomorrow Check this link out at NarcoNews for people attending the summit starting tomorrow and ending Sunday in Merida, Mexico- http://www.narconews.com/Issue27/article600.htmlReading this at that link makes a person think that personal use of drugs is not illegal in Columbia- Senator Carlos Gaviria, Colombia, former chief justice of the Supreme Court, who wrote the 1994 decision decriminalizing personal drug use, is coming to Mérida. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by p4me on February 11, 2003 at 16:55:40 PT The DEA is going to get money from Doctors(us) The DEA charges doctors for the right to prescribe medicines. They want to triple the fee to protect us from people that abuse legal drugs. The article is from today's LA Times, titled "Doctors to Pay Tab for New Drug Fight"- http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dea11feb11,1,1229300.story [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by mayan on February 11, 2003 at 16:12:26 PT Spread The Word "Of course the jury, like all juries, had the right to consult their consciences and set the law aside," points out Mr. Cockburn, "but such is the deplorable state of civics instruction today, and such is the dictatorial propensity of judges and the hostility or indifference of elite opinion that the fundamental principle of jury discretion, the foundation stone of freedom, is barely known."Here is a good article most of you have probably seen regarding jury nullification... Our Last, Best Hope: http://www.sierratimes.com/03/02/10/robinson.htmNo War For Oil...British MP kicked out of House of Commons for trying to raise issue of plagiarized dossier! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2745795.stmBritain's Intelligence Dossier on Iraq was Plagiarized from a Grad Student - by Michael C. Ruppert: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/020603_plagiarized.html More links regarding Plagiarized Dossier: http://whatreallyhappened.com/plag.htmlMake No Mistake About It - 9/11 Was An Inside Job(The lost voxnyc article that the federales shut down!): http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:dv2JBpTIZHUC:www.voxnyc.com/archives/00000076.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 [ Post Comment ] Post Comment