In February 2003, I posted this on the ACLU message board: Quote:
In California, a jury is outraged. They had convicted a man in a federal court for growing "medicinal marijuana", in violation of federal law. They were not told that the defendant, Ed Rosenthal, was growing the marijuana to be distributed by local medical marijuana clubs for seriously ill patients, and was acting in an official capacity as "an officer of the city" regarding the Oakland San Francisco Bay Area medical marijuana ordinance. They are outraged that the federal government was allowed to produce evidence convicting Mr. Rosenthal, but the defense counsel was not allowed to submit evidence of his official capacity. Some of the jurors gathered outside the federal courthouse and publicly apologized to Mr. Rosenthal, demanding a new trial. Mr. Rosenthal is facing a minimum of five years in prison. The jury foreman said: ""We as a jury truly were kept in the dark. I never want to see this happen again."
But it will happen again; and again, and again...
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And it did happen again. Mr. Rosenthal was recently indicted again, brought before the federal court and, once again, a jury convicted him. And again, the judge disallowed evidence to the jury that Mr. Rosenthal was working for the city in an official capacity.
It would seem that the people never learn. They get into a courtroom as jurors, and have to be told what to do, as little children. Maybe they are smoking too much of the weed that Mr. Rosenthal grows, and their brains are fried.
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