JURIES SHOULD LEAVE LAWMAKING TO THE LAWMAKERS

Ban On Medical Marijuana Is Wrong, But Must Be Observed Until It Is

Emotion has no place in a jury box. Neither does activism.

But try telling that to the federal jurors who publicly apologized for
convicting "guru of ganja" Ed Rosenthal on charges of marijuana cultivation
and conspiracy in San Francisco this month. They feel really bad about
having done their civic duty. So bad, in fact, that they've demanded that
the judge in the case grant a new trial, claiming that had they known
Rosenthal was growing marijuana as part of Oakland's medical marijuana
program, they would have acquitted him of all charges.

Their apology is unwarranted, their professed disdain for the judicial
process reckless and destructive.

Rosenthal was tried in a federal court for breaking federal laws that
criminalize growing or distributing marijuana, even for medical use. By his
own admission, he was guilty.

The jurors heard all the relevant evidence and convicted him accordingly.
They did the right and just thing. He is to be sentenced June 4 and faces
10 years to life in prison.

The fact that Rosenthal was growing marijuana legally under California law
was immaterial, because federal laws trump state laws. The judge was right
to exclude any reference to the California law; it wasn't germane or
binding. What's more, though Rosenthal may have broken the law for the best
possible reasons -- to provide relief and alternative treatment to the sick
and dying -- he broke the law nonetheless.

Had the jurors been influenced by Rosenthal's good intentions, and had they
acquitted him on these grounds, they would have reached their verdict for
emotional rather than legal reasons, and that is not how juries should
behave. Juries are supposed to be finders of fact, to weigh the evidence
and consider whether defendants have broken the law, and on that basis
alone to render verdicts. They are not supposed to consider whether they
like or sympathize with defendants. Most of all, they are not supposed to
consider whether they agree with the laws in question.

Some libertarians have argued that in cases like this, that is precisely
what jurors should do: nullify a law they deem unjust by refusing to
convict someone who has broken it. That is also precisely what the
remorseful jurors have indicated they would have done had they known
Rosenthal was growing marijuana for medical use. That would have been the
only true miscarriage of justice in this case, a repudiation of our legal
system and the rule of law it stands for.

The law that criminalizes medical marijuana is an idiotic law, and the
federal government is wasting valuable time and resources enforcing it,
especially by prosecuting innocuous humanitarians like Rosenthal. But the
law is the law, and if we don't like the law, then "we the people" have an
obligation to change it in the only way that laws are legitimately made in
our representative democracy: through Congress.

Flouting laws we don't like by refusing to convict the people who break
them is not the answer. When juries disregard the law, the law is rendered
meaningless. And that imperils us all, making even the semblance of a fair
trial almost impossible to secure, leaving us all at the mercy of 12 random
people's whimsical notion of what justice happens to be on any given day.

That, far more than bad laws that we have the power to change, truly is
tyranny.

Norah Vincent is a columnist in Yardley, Pa.