COOLER HEADS REJOICE

THIS IS a hard morning for a rational person who has to react to an
irrational situation," said Chris Rich, a medical marijuana rights
activist from Oregon. He was standing in line yesterday with dozens of
people to see grass guru Ed Rosenthal sentenced in San Francisco
federal court.

Rich was among the majority who believed that Rosenthal would go to
federal prison. It seemed rational under the circumstances. It is
irrational to many that our own government would punish people for
providing grass to the sick and the suffering.

Rosenthal had been convicted of growing marijuana - lots of it. The
feds demanded at least five years.

In the courtroom, yesterday, prosecutor George Bevan said six and and
a half years might be more like it. The courtroom and the packed
hallway outside seemed to grieve in advance. As Rosenthal entered the
courtroom with his daughter, 13-year-old Justine leaned against him.
"Daddy, I'm scared," she said. He hugged her. Everyone looked a little
scared.

It became evident this day was about people's lives, not all about
legal precedent or political posturing.

The words, "rational" and "logic" and "reasonable" were invoked all
morning. Yet none of it made much sense.

How does the so-called will of the California electorate go
ignored?

There were motions made in an arcane language and worked out in legal
lingo between gray-templed, bow-tied Judge Charles Breyer, Bevan and
Rosenthal's attorney, Dennis Riordan. Bevan said Rosenthal's
pot-growing enterprise was a "cash cow" with no altruistic purpose.
People in the hallway, some in wheelchairs, groaned their displeasure.
Riordan said to assume this case was a "garden variety" drug case was
wrong.

It was too different, it had no precedent, it will have no subsequent
comparison.

It is not clear if it was about states' rights, either. "I say, your
honor, if you do the crime, you do the time," Bevan said, trying to
state his case simply. But it wasn't simple.

The suspense began to rise in the courtroom. Many thought Breyer had
little lattitude in the sentencing guidelines. "Judge Breyer is a bad
guy," one angry woman said in the hall. But most disagree. Judge
Breyer is known as a fair judge, who had a difficult case. His wife,
Sydney Goldstein, sat in the courtroom, intent, somber.

Like the defendant, the judge brought some of his family along, too.
Rosenthal had publicly vilified the court and the prosecutors. Riordan
tried to reduce some of the damage those remarks might have incurred:
"Mr. Rosenthal believes strongly in the First Amendment, your honor.

So strongly that he often disregards what his attorneys say." In the
end, such blandishments were not necessary.

The judge said Rosenthal was likely unaware he was breaking federal
law and assumed Oakland officials would protect him and his medical
pot emporium. Rosenthal had even been "deputized" as a medical
marijuana agent by the city, a nice Wild West touch.

Riordan reminded the court that Rosenthal invited the fire inspector
to his premises. "Maybe the fire inspector is a co-conspirator,"
Riordan suggested facetiously. The judge smiled a little. The mood in
the courtroom began to change.

Hope of leniency was in the air.

"I found Mr. Rosenthal's testimony to be credible," stated Judge
Breyer, as he began to reduce the legal gravity of Ed's crime.

Rosenthal's supporters were holding their breath, afraid to make a
move. In the end, Ed Rosenthal's astonishing openness about his
activities did not seem to count so much as arrogance or naivete as it
did innocence.

Breyer sentenced him to one day - which he had already
served.

No prison, a $1,000 fine and three years probation.

He still could beat the conviction by an appeal.

One seasoned legal reporter muttered, "If I'm ever found guilty of
anything, I want Dennis Riordan next to me."

Terence Hallinan, the San Francisco District Attorney who champions
unmolested medical marijuana use, rushed past the U.S. marshals to hug
Ed Rosenthal. "This decision by the judge was out of humane concern,"
said Hallinan. Throughout the proceeding, Rosenthal appeared serene.

Perhaps he knew something we didn't.

Outside the Federal Building, even the conspicuous clown, Wavy Gravy,
looked a little lost in a jubilant crowd that followed the TV cameras
that followed Ed Rosenthal. "I think Ed might appeal the sentence,"
Wavy quipped. "This isn't a throwback to the good-spirited days of the
past," Wavy said to me. "This is a good thing for these times." The
Rosenthal case punches a hole in the federal cases against medical
marijuana, with a mighty assist by Judge Charles Breyer. On a day that
began so cloudy, words like "rational" and "logic" and "reasonable"
seemed to regain a little value for a while.

If, in an irrational way, compassion won this day, let compassion have
it. It's not just for justice, it's for Justine, too.


Pubdate: Thu, 05 Jun 2003
Source: San Francisco Examiner (CA)
Copyright: 2003 San Francisco Examiner
Contact: letters@sfexaminer.com
Website: http://www.examiner.com/