A federal jury in San Francisco convicted Oakland "Guru of Ganja" Ed Rosenthal on Wednesday of three of the five marijuana-growing felonies of which he stood accused.

After starting deliberations Tuesday afternoon, jurors convicted Rosenthal, 62, of one conspiracy count; one count of growing, intending to distribute and distributing marijuana; and one count of using a commercial building -- 1419 Mandela Parkway in Oakland -- as a site for growing and distributing marijuana.

But they acquitted him of growing and distributing marijuana at the Harm Reduction Center medical-marijuana club on San Francisco's Sixth Street, and they deadlocked on whether he had conspired to do so.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer -- who presided over Rosenthal's first trial in 2003, and has made it clear that he believes Rosenthal shouldn't have been retried -- told Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan to call whichever superiors he needed for approval to have that final count dropped, as he wouldn't brook yet another retrial in his courtroom. The charge was dropped within about an hour.

So, more than six years after federal agents raided the Mandela Parkway warehouse, the Harm Reduction Center, Rosenthal's home and other sites, seizing thousands of marijuana plants, Rosenthal now faces -- no prison time, no fine and no probation at all.

That's because Bevan and Breyer agreed months ago that Rosenthal couldn't be sentenced now to anything beyond the one day of time -- already served -- to which he was sentenced for his 2003 convictions in the same case, overturned last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals due to juror misconduct. Rosenthal is scheduled to be "sentenced" next Wednesday, but he'll walk free.

Prosecutors haven't publicly discussed their motives and goals in retrying Rosenthal. It could be that they wanted him to have felony convictions on his record should he ever be busted again, or to send a message to other medical marijuana advocates, or simply to chalk up a win in so long-running and high-profile a case.

"I think I'm gonna flee to Canada though in the next 24 hours, just so they can bring me back for sentencing," Rosenthal quipped after Wednesday's verdict. "I feel like the whole thing is a parody. ... It's not going to really change my life much one way or the other."

But he intends to appeal these convictions nonetheless as a travesty of justice, he said.

Robert Amparan, one of Rosenthal's attorneys, said he'll first file a motion for a new trial; Breyer seems unlikely to grant such a motion, given his disdain for this second trial. Amparan also said his own strength is jury trial and he wants another attorney to review his work with fresh eyes, so he anticipates Rosenthal will retain new counsel for the appeal.

Prosecutors had re-indicted Rosenthal in October with these charges as well as nine tax-evasion and money-laundering counts, but Breyer tossed out all the financial counts in March, deeming them to be vindictive prosecution.

As in his first trial, these jurors weren't allowed to hear any testimony about the fact that Rosenthal was acting under the auspices of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative -- deemed an officer of the city by Oakland's City Council -- to grow marijuana for use under the state's medical marijuana law. Federal law still bans all cultivation, possession and use of marijuana.

"Whether they know it or not, the jury voted against their own self-interest," Rosenthal said. "At some point they're going to wake up and realize the enormity of what they did, and they're going to live with that for the rest of their lives the way the previous jury did."

Most of the jurors in Rosenthal's 2003 trial renounced their verdict within hours or rendering it, saying they felt the exclusion of his medical motives from the trial had railroaded them into convicting him.

"It's a cruel thing for the government to impose upon its citizens, the idea that they have to leave their conscience behind when they vote in the jury box. That should be part of it, and so should justice," Rosenthal said.

Amparan said he's concerned Rosenthal's re-conviction will embolden federal authorities to crack down on medical marijuana throughout California and elsewhere. If the federal government could persuade a Bay Area jury to convict someone who'd been acting under Oakland's municipal authority, he said, everyone is now at risk "be they a dispensary, be they a grower, be they a patient."

Rosenthal said he's working with a pair of state legislators to draft a bill that would grant providers more explicit protection under state law; he expects to have an announcement on that within the next few weeks.

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Pubdate: Thu, 31 May 2007
Source: Oakland Tribune, The (CA)
Copyright: 2007 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
Contact: triblet@angnewspapers.com
Website: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/314
Author: Josh Richman, Staff Writer