Pubdate: Tue, 04 Feb 2003
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Copyright: 2003 Associated Press
Author: David Kravets, AP Legal Affairs Writer Note: Editors: David Kravets 
has been covering state and federal courts for a decade.

ROSENTHAL REMAINS FREE AS POT CASE JURORS DECRY THEIR OWN VERDICT

In a courtroom crowded with medical marijuana advocates wearing "Free Ed" 
buttons, a federal judge said Tuesday that convicted marijuana guru Ed 
Rosenthal is not a flight risk and allowed him to remain free pending his 
June sentencing.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to revoke the bail of 
Rosenthal, who faces up to an 85-year prison term when he is sentenced June 
4. After Breyer refused that request, Rosenthal shook hands and exchanged 
hugs with many supporters in the courtroom.

Rosenthal, 58, the self-described "Guru of Ganja," was convicted last 
Friday of cultivation and other drug charges by a jury that almost 
immediately questioned its own verdict. Several jurors have said 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."

Other jurors reached Monday by The Associated Press agreed. They plan an 
unusual gesture: writing Rosenthal to apologize.

Five of the jurors were in the courtroom for Tuesday's bail hearing. Some 
jurors planned a news conference later Tuesday at the federal courthouse.

After a two-week trial, the 12-member jury unanimously concluded that 
Rosenthal, a world-renowned marijuana advocate, was growing more than 100 
plants, conspiring to cultivate marijuana and maintaining an Oakland 
warehouse for a growing operation. He was painted as a major drug 
manufacturer and put on little 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.

"I really feel manipulated in a way," said juror Pam Klarkowsky, a 
50-year-old Petaluma nurse. "Had I known that information, there is no way 
I could have found that man guilty."

Throughout the two-week trial, Rosenthal's defense team repeatedly tried to 
call witnesses to testify that Rosenthal was growing medical marijuana. The 
judge denied those requests. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided 
with the judge twice during mid-trial appeals.

After the verdicts were read, Rosenthal called Breyer's courtroom a 
"kangaroo" court.

Still, legal experts said Judge Breyer, brother of U.S. Supreme Court 
Justice Stephen Breyer, had federal precedent on his side when excluding 
defense witnesses.

"A bank robber is not allowed a defense that he was stealing money for his 
starving children, even if he was," said Rory Little, a Hastings College of 
the Law professor. "The general principle is: Motive is not a defense to a 
crime."

Also backing Breyer, experts say, was a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court 
two years ago prohibiting advocates for the sick and dying from doling out 
marijuana to those with a doctor's recommendation. That decision prompted a 
string of raids on medical marijuana growing operations throughout 
California. In addition, the federal government does not recognize the 
medical marijuana laws in nine states that have them.

Even so, some of the jurors on Rosenthal's case feel duped.

Juror Debra DeMartini, a 45-year-old Sonoma restaurant manager, said she 
would have acquitted had she known what the media was reporting during the 
trial. Breyer ordered the jury not to listen, read or watch any news 
accounts of the trial.

"I'm hearing all of these things after the fact," she said. "That sheds a 
whole new light on it."

Jury foreman Charles Sackett, 51 of Sebastopol, said he hopes Rosenthal's 
case is overturned on appeal.

"Some of us jurors are upset about the way the trial was conducted in that 
we feel Mr. Rosenthal didn't have a chance and therefore neither did 
state's rights or patient's rights," the landscaper said. "I would have 
liked to have been given the opportunity to decide with all the evidence."
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