Pot Case Jurors Call For New Trial

Blah blah blah blahh, jury nullification, blah blah blah blah, Rosenthal was railroaded, blah, blah, pot is the savior of the world, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And the circus of Ed Rosentahl continues from the fanatic supporters of pot on FR.

Dane, Dane, Dane: did your pacifier fall out of your drooling mouth again?

Jury nulification after the fact....

What part of the Supremacy Clause and the Civil War, in which over 500,000 were killed to enforce it, did Rosenthal miss?

and which part of the 9th and 10th did you miss?

I'd say the 10th is dead because of the Civil War, which isn't something I expected to see cheered on at Free Republic (actually, by now I'm not surprised).

Jurors: We've been had
BY J.K. DINEEN
Of The Examiner Staff

All landscaper Charles Sackett really wanted to do was go home to Sebastopol and prune his roses.

But the soft-spoken foreman of the jury that convicted marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal last week said he couldn't sleep at night if he had.

So he joined four jurors Tuesday in front of a bank of cameras to apologize to Rosenthal, and to blast the federal judge and prosecutors Sackett said misled the jury by not allowing the defense to raise issues of state and local medical marijuana laws.

The federal government does not recognize state medical marijuana laws.

"This has been hard on us because we're all working people, leading quiet middle class lives," said Sackett. "But we wanted to make a statement."

Though they had been excused Friday, six of the 12 jurors sat in the courtroom's front row as Judge Charles Breyer ruled Rosenthal was not a flight risk and allowed him to remain free on $500,000 bail pending his June sentencing.

Later, five jurors joined politicians and medical pot patients in a press conference that was part personal apology and part political rally.

Joining Sackett in court were real estate broker Marney Craig, student Kimberly Sulsur, aviation technician Donald Withers, artist Pamela Klarkowski and a juror who left before the press conference began.

Two more jurors were on board with a public statement, but could not attend Tuesday's event, according to Craig.

"What really needs to happen here is he needs to have a new trial and he needs a jury that is allowed to hear all the evidence," said Craig, reading a public statement agreed to by the other jurors.

While legal experts doubt the jurors' feelings of judicial betrayal will impact Rosenthal's ultimate fate, it may have contributed to Breyer's decision not to take him into custody Tuesday, Rosenthal said.

"I'm really happy to be here today and would really like to thank the jury because both the jury and I were victims of a vicious persecution by an illegal government action," said Rosenthal.

The press conference was bizarre even by the standards of San Francisco federal court, which is used to offbeat protests. Fire trucks chugged by with firefighters honking horns and pumping fists in support.

Protesters held signs saying "Free the weed" and "Free Ed" and "We love you Ed."

Pamela Klarkowski, a resident nurse, said she would never have voted to convict Rosenthal had she known he had been deputized to grow pot by the city of Oakland, one of many details involving medical marijuana the judge would not allow into the federal courtroom.

District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a longtime supporter of medical pot, said he had never seen anything like Tuesday's press conference.

"I don't know if ever before in history have the majority of jurors held a press conference to say they were misled and misunderstood what they were doing when they rendered a guilty verdict," said Hallinan.

Meanwhile Rosenthal, who has written a half-dozen books on marijuana, is busy writing about his trial.

"Writers have the last word, they always have," said Rosenthal. "Just look at the Bible."

What part of the jury process exactly do you hate so much and why?

Jurors have an undisputable right to judge both the Law and the facts.

But hey, why let a little thing like the Law get in your way.

This judge should be impeached immediately for lying to the jury.

L

This is one reason why criminal trials should never be televised and the identity of the jurors kept as confidential as possible. The poor jurors are being terrorized by the drugies in Oakland. The minute you allow "medical" marijuana, every drugie in the county will have a doctors note prescribing it.

My bet is that these jurors and their families have received hundreds of threats and are responding to them, not remorse about their decision. This, BTW, is another reason why the ultra-left wing media fails, most old-timee written media require a name and address to be published for a letter to the editor. Thus, the writer has to be willing to take abuse, midnight calls, and see his family abused just to voice an unpopular opinion.

Meanwhile Rosenthal, who has written a half-dozen books on marijuana, is busy writing about his trial

Which no doubt will be #1 on the "best seller" list at High Times and the Cato Institute.

What part of the jury process exactly do you hate so much and why?
Jurors have an undisputable right to judge both the Law and the facts.
But hey, why let a little thing like the Law get in your way.

This judge should be impeached immediately for lying to the jury

Could you say that with a straight face to the Nicole Simpson's family or Ron Goldman's family?

JMO, you could, because "jury nullifaction" is the uber mantra of the retro 60's pot crowd here on FR.

Don't we have budget deficits? Couldn't the prosecution better direct its resources towards violent criminals?

Jurors: We've been had
BY J.K. DINEEN
Of The Examiner Staff

All landscaper Charles Sackett really wanted to do was go home to Sebastopol and prune his roses.

But the soft-spoken foreman of the jury that convicted marijuana advocate Ed Rosenthal last week said he couldn't sleep at night if he had.

So he joined four jurors Tuesday in front of a bank of cameras to apologize to Rosenthal, and to blast the federal judge and prosecutors Sackett said misled the jury by not allowing the defense to raise issues of state and local medical marijuana laws.

The federal government does not recognize state medical marijuana laws.

"This has been hard on us because we're all working people, leading quiet middle class lives," said Sackett. "But we wanted to make a statement."

Though they had been excused Friday, six of the 12 jurors sat in the courtroom's front row as Judge Charles Breyer ruled Rosenthal was not a flight risk and allowed him to remain free on $500,000 bail pending his June sentencing.

Later, five jurors joined politicians and medical pot patients in a press conference that was part personal apology and part political rally.

Joining Sackett in court were real estate broker Marney Craig, student Kimberly Sulsur, aviation technician Donald Withers, artist Pamela Klarkowski and a juror who left before the press conference began.

Two more jurors were on board with a public statement, but could not attend Tuesday's event, according to Craig.

"What really needs to happen here is he needs to have a new trial and he needs a jury that is allowed to hear all the evidence," said Craig, reading a public statement agreed to by the other jurors.

While legal experts doubt the jurors' feelings of judicial betrayal will impact Rosenthal's ultimate fate, it may have contributed to Breyer's decision not to take him into custody Tuesday, Rosenthal said.

"I'm really happy to be here today and would really like to thank the jury because both the jury and I were victims of a vicious persecution by an illegal government action," said Rosenthal.

The press conference was bizarre even by the standards of San Francisco federal court, which is used to offbeat protests. Fire trucks chugged by with firefighters honking horns and pumping fists in support.

Protesters held signs saying "Free the weed" and "Free Ed" and "We love you Ed."

Pamela Klarkowski, a resident nurse, said she would never have voted to convict Rosenthal had she known he had been deputized to grow pot by the city of Oakland, one of many details involving medical marijuana the judge would not allow into the federal courtroom.

District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a longtime supporter of medical pot, said he had never seen anything like Tuesday's press conference.

"I don't know if ever before in history have the majority of jurors held a press conference to say they were misled and misunderstood what they were doing when they rendered a guilty verdict," said Hallinan.

Meanwhile Rosenthal, who has written a half-dozen books on marijuana, is busy writing about his trial.

"Writers have the last word, they always have," said Rosenthal. "Just look at the Bible."

Good point: the DEA, the ONDCP (the "Drug Czar") are out there wasting BILLIONS in tax dollars while they are, according to the Bush White House, "a failure" at accounting for the expenditure and effectivenes of all that money.
Source: New York Times

In an unusually harsh critique of an agency with a strong global reputation, the White House has questioned the ability of the Drug Enforcement Administration to stem the flow of narcotics and is threatening to give the agency its smallest budget increase in 15 years.
The agency "is unable to demonstrate progress in reducing the availability of illegal drugs in the United States," the Office of Management and Budget wrote in an assessment released this week as part of the budget plan. The agency lacks clear long-term strategies and goals, its managers are not held accountable for problems, and its financial controls do not comply with federal standards, the review found.

The findings raise uncertainties for the agency at a time when Washington expects it to enlarge its antidrug role. That is because the F.B.I. is moving 400 agents off drug cases to terrorism, and the drug agency is being asked to pick up the slack.

Officials at the agency and its parent, the Justice Department, said the agency was working to address many of the concerns in the report. They said the report was more a reflection of the agency's failure to communicate its successes than its ability to fight drug trafficking.

"It's not that we're doing things wrong or we've been ineffective," a spokesman, Will Glaspy, said. "It's more that we just need to do a better job of defining our accomplishments."

Officials at the agency pointed to a growing number of seizures for some types of drugs along with the reduced purity of street drugs as evidence of their success in squeezing suppliers out of business.

Critics say that drug purity has increased and that drugs have become easier to buy than ever before. President Bush acknowledged in his report on drug strategy for 2002 that use among young people was at "unacceptably high levels" and that "in recent years we have lost ground" in reducing illegal use.

The report on the agency was one of 234 that the Office of Management and Budget completed for 20 percent of the programs and agencies as it tries for the first time to assign standards and criteria to budget review.

Officials stressed that the criticisms were not uncommon. Like the agency, half the programs reviewed received overall ratings of "results not demonstrated."

Still, the severity of the report on the drug agency caught law enforcement officials off guard because of the agency's prominence, size and generally solid reputation in fighting trafficking. Unlike sister agencies like the F.B.I. and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the drug agency has largely avoided major scandals and calls for reform from members of Congress. It has enjoyed generally strong support on Capitol Hill, and its former director, Asa Hutchinson, who left last week to join the Homeland Security Department, was popular among conservatives in Congress.

With that support, the agency has seen its budget more than double since 1995, according to the Justice Department. But in the White House budget released on Monday, the financing is to remain essentially flat at $1.56 billion.

Its growth of less than 1 percent is dwarfed by increases in financing at other law enforcement agencies of 10 percent or more. Mr. Glaspy said it represented the smallest increase for the agency since 1988.

The performance assessments for the drug agency and other bureaus "were one factor, but clearly not the only factor in funding decisions," said Trent Duffy, a spokesman for the White House on the budget.

The overarching concern in financing law enforcement, officials said, is the need to make counterterrorism the top priority. The Bush administration has sought to link drug use to the threat of terrorism, and other Justice Department drug enforcement programs received proposed increases of up to 10 percent in the budget. But the drug agency will be asked to scale back spending in areas like community enforcement even as it seeks to add agents on the street, officials said.

"When you're fighting a war against terrorism, there is not an infinite amount of money to go around," an official at the Justice Department said. "We are putting significant funds into the war against drugs. But we have to be realistic as to what we can afford."

Critics said the critique of the agency was long overdue and could start a debate about how the war on drugs is working.

"The emperor has no clothes," said Eric F. Sterling, the president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in Silver Spring, Md., and a specialist on drug enforcement. The White House report "should really shake up our national revelry with drug enforcement and generate a major re-evaluation of our antidrug efforts."

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group in New York that promotes alternative policies, said he was "pleasantly surprised" by the findings.

"Typically," Mr. Nadelmann said, "the D.E.A. has gotten a pretty free ride. Nobody was really held to account for the issue of reducing overall drug use. But this suggests some measure of seriousness about actually putting in a set of real criteria."

Whew Nick, double posting liberal horse hockey from a San Francisco newspaper(replies #9 and #15).

Hey Nick, your spamming of a liberal pro-pot article ain't going to change minds, but it does show your fanatical devotion to the Libertarian cause of "pot uber alles", IMO.

From:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/01/31/BA213606.DTL

("Judge keeps tight rein on pot trial: References to medical uses quickly squelched in federal court", by Bob Egelko, Sam Framcisco Chronicle Staff Writer, Friday, Jan. 31, 2003)

Without prompting from the prosecutor, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer --

vigilant about keeping the trial focused on federal law, which does not recognize medical marijuana -- told jurors to disregard the reference.

A few minutes later, as Rosenthal's lawyer struggled to let Miley describe the defendant's motives and the city of Oakland's endorsement of his work as a medical marijuana supplier, the judge verbally shoved the attorney aside. Breyer then asked Miley a few yes-or-no questions and abruptly curtailed his testimony, to gasps from Rosenthal's supporters.

A few minutes later, as Rosenthal's lawyer struggled to let Miley describe the defendant's motives and the city of Oakland's endorsement of his work as a medical marijuana supplier, the judge verbally shoved the attorney aside. Breyer then asked Miley a few yes-or-no questions and abruptly curtailed his testimony, to gasps from Rosenthal's supporters.

Yep there is something called state court and federal court.

If you want the Federal laws changed why don't you appeal to Ed Rosenthal's probable congressional representative, Nancy Pelosi.

JMO, but I think you will find a sympathetic ear when calling Ms. Pelosi's office.

Jurors: We've been had

Judy: We've ALL been had

It's okay for cops to lie to people.
It's okay for them to kill people.
It's okay to withhold evidence from the jury.
It's okay to manipulate evidence to present to the jury.
It's okay to attack our constitional rights.

Many things are okay ... as long as they are all done in the name of the War on Drugs and/or professional advancement.

DIRTY COPS
DIRTY PROSECUTORS
DIRTY WITNESSES
DIRTY JUDGES

TRICKED JURIES

AND PEOPLE LIKE DANE WHO APPROVE IT ALL

That's okay. JESUS KNOWS. Come Judgement day, all of them will answer to God more heavily than some pitiful wigged-out addict.

The addict is sick in his mind and body.
Those listed above are sick in their hearts and souls.