GANJA GURU'S NEXT DAY IN COURT TO COME NEXT WEEK

Rosenthal Has Already Served His Prison Sentence, Faces Retrial

SAN FRANCISCO -- Denying a slew of defense motions, a federal judge
set the stage Thursday for the marijuana-cultivation retrial of
Oakland's "Guru of Ganja" Ed Rosenthal to begin next week.

Jurors will be selected Monday and opening statements will be given
Tuesday, launching a trial lasting three to four weeks, U.S. District
Judge Charles Breyer said.

Attorneys for Rosenthal and Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan
sparred before Breyer for about two hours Thursday as each side
argued for inclusion or exclusion of certain evidence.

When the dust cleared, Breyer had denied Rosenthal's motion to
dismiss the case, noting the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had
remanded it to him for retrial and that's what he intends to provide.

And just as he had at Rosenthal's first trial, the judge again denied
Rosenthal's motions to introduce evidence and testimony showing he'd
grown marijuana for medical use with the city of Oakland's knowledge
and blessing.

Famed for his marijuana cultivation books and the "Ask Ed" column he
wrote for High Times magazine, Rosenthal's 2003 conviction of three
marijuana-growing felonies came more than a year after federal agents
raided his Oakland home, an Oakland warehouse in which he was
growing marijuana and a San Francisco medical marijuana club he supplied.

Medical marijuana use on a doctor's recommendation is legal under
state law but prohibited by federal law, so Rosenthal was barred from
mounting a medical defense at trial. Breyer sentenced him to one day
behind bars -- time he'd already served.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his convictions in
April 2006, finding juror misconduct -- a juror's conversation with
an attorney-friend during deliberations -- compromised Rosenthal's
right to a fair verdict and so warranted a new trial. But the court
also rejected Rosenthal's claim of immunity from prosecution as an
officer of Oakland who grew the drug under the city's medical
marijuana ordinance.

Prosecutors re-indicted Rosenthal in October, adding charges that
he'd laundered marijuana proceeds by buying four money orders totaling

$1,854, and that he'd falsified tax returns for 1999, 2000 and 2001
by omitting income from his marijuana distribution. But Breyer in
March tossed out those new charges, deeming them to be vindictive
prosecution.

The government already has said it won't seek more than the one-day
jail sentence Rosenthal served for his original conviction should he
be convicted anew. Breyer has made it abundantly clear he'd like to
see the case go away, suggesting the government should weigh whether
its time and energy -- as well as his own -- is best spent on
re-trying a man who already has served his sentence. Prosecutors
chose to proceed anyway.

But if Breyer seemed testy with anyone Thursday, it was the defense.
When attorney Shari Greenberger said she was "inclined" to withdraw
part of a motion regarding evidence seized at the marijuana warehouse
on Mandela Parkway, Breyer snapped, "This is not an encounter
session" and urged the defense attorneys to make a decision.

Breyer rejected the defense's call for a hearing on whether the
federal ban on marijuana is scientifically and medically appropriate,
saying he doesn't have jurisdiction to do so. When the attorneys
tried to argue it was a novel issue in a case like this, Breyer
replied, "Listen, I'm a child of the '60s. ... This is not new to
me."