Reader Ellen Roberts points out this link to the jury reaction in the Rosenthal conviction:
Jurors who convicted marijuana guru Ed Rosenthal of cultivation and other drug charges said Monday they would have acquitted him had they been told he was growing medical marijuana for the city of Oakland.
“I feel like I made the biggest mistake in my life,” said juror Marney Craig, a 58-year-old Novato property manager. “We convicted a man who is not a criminal. We unfortunately had no idea of who he was or what he did.”
Other jurors reached by The Associated Press agreed. They plan an unusual gesture: writing Rosenthal to apologize.
Rosenthal, 58, the self-described “Guru of Ganja,” faces up to an 85-year prison term when sentenced June 4. Prosecutors on Tuesday are scheduled to ask U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to revoke Rosenthal’s bail.
After a two-week trial Friday, a 12-member federal jury unanimously concluded that Rosenthal, a world-renowned marijuana advocate, was growing more than 100 plants, conspired to cultivate marijuana and maintained an Oakland warehouse for a growing operation. He was painted as a major drug manufacturer and put on little, if any, defense.
The jury was not told that Rosenthal was acting as an agent of the city of Oakland’s medical marijuana program, which was an outgrowth of a 1996 medical marijuana initiative approved by California’s voters.
Disgusting. This just gets tiresome after a while. I wish people would get their act together and realize that the Patriot Act they areso hysterical about is nothing compared to what the War on Drugs has done to our civil liberties.
Go read the whole story.
Mark Odell
An ‘unreviewable and irreversible power … to acquit’
by Vin Suprynowicz
http://www.sierratimes.com/02/08/04/vin.htm
The Verdict I’d Like To See
by Vin Suprynowicz
http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/le970401-05.html