THE ED ROSENTHAL VERDICT AND YOUR RIGHTS AS A JUROR

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? 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 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
government-approved 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 Carta 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 and
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 intended as a last-resort
veto, a fail-safe for the people, against 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." Government judge/prosecutors and other
courtesans of government power will howl over this point.

But they cannot explain away the clear words of 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?" The juror who wishes to be seated will maintain an
attitude of having a fair and open mind, but is essentially ignorant of all
else. "Of course your worshipfulness," says the hopeful juror who wants to
be seated, "I will obey the government judge." When 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 might
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 examining the law,
which led to acquittals when government over-reached. This gets in the way
of the career ambitions of government judge/prosecutors. Being informed
about jury rights naturally thwarts the rubber-stamping 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 mandatory, no-parole hard
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 state 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 do indeed 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.