Jacob Sullum: Reefer gladness / Drug users in the next office and atop the corporate ladder
Lewis, the man who accomplished all this, remains Progressive’s chairman and owns more than a tenth of the company’s shares, making him a billionaire. Observers call him a perfectionist, “an extraordinary businessman,” and “an absolutist about untiring effort.” They also call him “a functioning pothead.”
Collateral damage: “There Was a Report of Guns and Drugs”
In the case of Alberta Spruill, the cops were enforcing the law. An investigation into whether they followed correct procedures is warranted, but an examination into the laws they were enforcing is even more important. It’s time to reconsider both the war on drugs and the war on guns, for the sake of future innocent victims.
truth in the courtroom, please
Mary Lou Seymour writes, apparently parroting the Fully Informed Jury Association:
This Wednesday, June 4, 2003, Ed Rosenthal is scheduled to be sentenced for growing medical marijuana in California. As you may recall, back in February after Rosenthal was convicted, nine of the Rosenthal jurors publicly protested the verdict, going on Dateline, CNN, and other media stating they would never have convicted if they had known this was a medical case. In other words, if those jurors had known about “jury nullification,” Rosenthal would not be facing a minimum of ten years in prison. . . .
Am I not reading the same words here that everyone else sees?: “nine . . . jurors . . . stat[ed] they would never have convicted” — that says to me that they didn’t need to be told about nullification; they’d have nullified even if they didn’t know the word — “if they had known this was a medical case,” i.e. if the judge had not protected them from being confused by inconvenient facts.
Nullification and the right to present defensive evidence are both important causes, but neither is served by confusing the two. In my humble opinion.
It’s odd to see US v Rosenthal spun (e.g. here) as a demonstration of the need for juries to be advised of their power to nullify, after some of the jurors said they would have nullified had they known all the facts. The crime in this case is the judge’s exclusion of evidence.
I’d like to hope something good will come of this, but am not holding my breath.
No surprise here: ‘Guru of Ganja’ Found Guilty of Federal Marijuana Charges. (Link from Rational Review.)
Deliberating for a day, the 12-member jury concluded that Rosenthal, the self-described “Guru of Ganja,” was growing more than 1,000 plants, conspiring to cultivate marijuana and maintaining a warehouse for a growing operation. He faces 10 years to life when sentenced June 4.
. . . .
Under strict orders from U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, Rosenthal couldn’t tell the jury he was growing pot as “an officer” for Oakland’s medical marijuana program.
. . . .
“There is no such thing as medical marijuana,” said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman. “We’re Americans first, Californians second.”
That’s interesting epistemology.
Outside the courtroom, jury foreman Charles Sackett III said jurors suspected Rosenthal was growing medical marijuana, since a host of protesters outside the courthouse held constant demonstrations.
Sackett, however, said the jury followed federal law when it reached its “tough decision.”
“We had no legal wiggle room,” Sackett said. When asked if he hoped the verdicts would be overturned on appeal, Sackett replied: “Personally, yes, I do.”
Does anyone believe an appeal will get anywhere? Every Federal drug law obviously violates the Ninth and Tenth Amendments; but judges practically never enforce either of those quaint clauses. It’s high time for jurors to remember the Nuremberg Principle and resume enforcing the Bill of Rights on their own initiative.