'GANJA GURU' RE-CONVICTED

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.