Cannabis Matters
The Ed Rosenthal Verdict and Your Rights as a Juror
written by Norm L
Feb 2003

What Happened

Let's face it: Ed Rosenthal was right. He didn't get a fair trial. It was a "kangaroo court," rigged. Jurors were manipulated. As soon as they learned the facts of the case, half of them loudly and publicly recanted their verdict. Just how did the Feds rig it? Several ways. First off, there is the jury selection ("voir dire") process. Government selects a large pool of potential jurors; government prosecutors question each potential juror.

Jurors with a clue or a qualm are tossed immediately, especially anyone with any knowledge of FIJA (Fully Informed Jury Association) or of the topic of jury nullification. The prosecution rejects anyone who knows that jurors may simply ignore the judge's instructions and vote their conscience. Such an informed juror is the very last thing a prosecutor/judge wants. The government wants rubber-stamps. And most of the time, this is exactly what they get. (Remember, the Feds have a 95% conviction rate.) In Ed's case, over half of the potential jurors were rejected by government because, in essence, they knew too much.

Once Ed's show-trial began, the judge worked hard to block any defense testimony beyond what amounted to a confession of the government's case. The judge instructed the pliant jurors to not read media reports, reports which disclosed salient facts the government desired jurors not to hear. Best for jurors not to hear that Ed Rosenthal was an employee of the city government in his medical cannabis growing duties. Best for jurors not to think about their rights and responsibilities to ignore (yes, ignore!) the judge's instructions and vote their consciences. Pre-selected and carefully directed to rubber-stamp the government's predetermined verdict of guilty, the cowed jurors returned a guilty verdict.

Traditional Jury Power, while we are still at least allowed trials by jury (by the good graces of a beneficent government from which all blessings flow), let us ponder a few basics. The concept of a trial by a jury of one's peers stretches back to at least the English Magna Charta of 1215, and in English Common Law before that date. The jury is intended as a check on unrestrained government power, and is a heritage that Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, citizens of the United Kingdom, and the United States all share. A jury is not intended to be a blinkered rubber-stamp for whatever those nicely-dressed government men (backed up of course by legions of officials, experts, and authorities) may dictate. A jury is intend as a last-resort veto, a fail-safe for a mistaken (or malicious) government.

As such, jurors have always had the power to simply reject government dictates and decrees, and just vote the way they feel like voting. As President John Adams put it, "It is not only his right, but his duty... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." Yes, even if the prosecutor/judge repeatedly screams that jurors must find a given defendant guilty, jurors are free to decide for themselves. Jurors don't even owe an explanation, and are not required to justify their votes. This is why Alexander Hamilton said they "should acquit, even against the judge's instruction ... if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong." Let government judge/prosecutors and other courtesans of government power howl over this point. But they cannot explain away the clear words of both the founding fathers, traditional English Common Law, and plain common sense. Let's hear the government apologists plainly refute John Adams, and say that Alexander Hamilton's words are false.

What Might Have Happened

During the voir dire process, jurors might have agreed to the prosecutor's standard question of, "Will you follow the law as given, even if you disagree with it?" Oh yes! As jurors we will follow the law as given. "Of course your worshipfulness," says the juror who wants to be seated, "I will obey the government judge." Then the government prosecutor asks, "Have you read any material on the topic of jury nullification?" A potential juror who wants to be seated on the jury will, for example, then ask, "What's 'mollification' anyway?" So much for the government's first line of jury rigging.

Were the potential juror actually to be seated, they might have taken heart knowing their rights. At one time in the US, jurors were instructed of their right and duty to judge not only the (government-presented) facts of the case, but to judge also the very law itself. Sadly, government realized that telling jurors of their traditional rights often resulted in jurors thinking for themselves, which led to acquittals when government over-reached, which got in the way of the career ambitions of government judge/prosecutors. Being informed about jury rights naturally thwarts this process. Thus, good government people think it best to keep juries as ignorant as possible about their rights.

Finally, jurors might have reviewed the facts of the case, and thought for themselves. Was the person obviously guilty of murder? Then the jury should find the person guilty. But is the government prosecuting someone for political reasons? Is government prosecuting people because of what are political acts? Is the government prosecuting people for newly-minted "crimes": acts which have no victims? (A prosecutor's convenient stretch that "society" or "community" is harmed by some victimless crime may be taken with a grain of salt.) Jurors should keep in mind that government also wants to keep juries ignorant of the penalties, the decades of jail time people are exposed to for these victimless acts. Ed Rosenthal is looking at a possible life sentence for just growing a few pot plants as a city employee, for sick people, in accordance with California law. The government hid all this from the jury.

Government may scream bloody murder at the very thought jurors may remember their traditional rights to judge both the facts and the law itself. Prosecutors and judges may cry loudly that jurors must forever be kept ignorant and misled. Let them.

The jury has the final say. Jurors have the right and duty to find the verdict according to their own best understanding even if that finding is in direct opposition to the direction of the court. If Ed Rosenthal's jury had been informed beforehand, they would have acquitted him.