San Francisco Chronicle: Jurors say they were duped. Just four days after they had found Rosenthal guilty, the jurors said they felt misled by the judge’s refusal to let them hear that Rosenthal’s motivation for growing marijuana was to supply medical patients.
The sheer meanness of the Bush administration’s generals in the War on (Some) Drugs has never been clearer than in their pursuit of Ed Rosenthal. This man was working under the auspices of the city of Oakland, dispensing medical marijuana to severely ill people.
The judge’s refusal even to let the jury know that Rosenthal was working for the city is just outrageous. How could this not be relevant? What kind of legal system gives a defendant no way to offer a defense? The same one, perhaps, that now allows the feds to imprison Americans indefinitely without access even to a lawyer.
Rosenthal is no criminal. He’s an example of enlightened policy and caring. To the feds, he’s an example to be made — that you don’t challenge Uncle Sam’s right to set all policy, period, and the hell the the alleged rights of states that in other contexts Bush and his cronies find so vital.
Today, Secretary of State Colin Powell is appearing at the United Nations to make a case that we have to take out the monstrous Saddam Hussein. He’d have more moral authority if the government he represented was less contemptuous of human rights at home.