Gonzalez-Appointed USA targets Ed Rosenthal ... again

Pardon me, but the Federal Government's Real Priorities™ are showing through again....

Federal officials are seeking to try Ed Rosenthal a third time

Prosecutors decided on a second trial for Ed Rosenthal after a "thorough and careful review,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who had urged him to reconsider his decision at a hearing last month.

Bevan said the final decision was made by Scott Schools, the interim U.S. attorney in San Francisco. When Breyer asked if Justice Department officials in Washington had been consulted, Bevan said he didn't know.

Scott Schools is one of the Gonzalez-appointed Interim Attorneys appointed by Alberto Gonzalez in the recent wave of firings (apparently referred as "Pearl Harbor Day" as they occurred on Dec. 7th) using the buried provision in the PATRIOT Act allowing such a maneuver.

More after the fold....

Scott was specifically replacing Kevin Ryan [positive review | Negative Review] for alleged - and possibly substantiated - performance issues.

SF Gate

"I'll be here until the completion of the appointment process,'' Scott Schools, named interim U.S. attorney in San Francisco by the Justice Department last month, said in his first meeting with reporters.

He gave no estimate of how long it would take for a successor to be nominated by Bush and confirmed by the Senate, but said he hasn't applied for the post. A recent federal law, which congressional Democrats are seeking to repeal, allows Schools and other interim appointees to stay in office until they are replaced by Senate-confirmed prosecutors. The previous law limited their tenure to 120 days.

The "law" in question here, of course, is the PATRIOT Act. Why the paper chooses to obfuscate this important tidbit of information is interesting. The PATRIOT Act is again being used against the cannabis reform movement.

More on Mr. Replacement:  

Recent U.S. attorney appointees include an assistant attorney general for civil rights, a chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and a chief of staff to the head of the criminal division. One appointee, Scott Schools, was general counsel for the Justice office that oversees U.S. attorneys and led the internal probe of the office of the fired prosecutor he is replacing, Kevin Ryan in San Francisco.

It appears Ryan may have been the only one of the "Gonzalez 7" who actually may have been a performance issue but his replacement - who led the investigation of the person he replaced has set to RE-TRYING for a THIRD time a case already the deadest of horses.

Here's the message: this is exactly how important it is the the Republicans and the Federal government to keep cannabis prohibition in place despite the sheer monumental stupidity of it all. It's a federal power thing, if nothing else.

Rosenthal's case is ostensibly about medical marijuana which is a state law in California. The feds are screaming bloody murder that a state law cannot overrule or supersede a federal law on the subject and that is used as a crowbar and battering ram against the 9th and 10th amendments, and has been for years.

Rosenthal's original trial is known worldwide as the most ridiculous of corrupt trials. The jury, learning of how badly they had been manipulated, held a press conference immediately afterwards to denounce the charade. From the SF Gate

His trial was the first and most prominent of several federal prosecutions of growers who were providing marijuana for patients and dispensaries under a 1996 California initiative that allowed individuals to use the drug with a doctor's approval.

Breyer barred evidence about medical marijuana during the trial, saying it was irrelevant to a prosecution under federal drug laws. But the judge sentenced Rosenthal to the one day in jail he had already served, rather than the five years prescribed by federal guidelines. Breyer said Rosenthal had believed he was acting legally because the city of Oakland had designated him as an official in its medical marijuana distribution program.

A federal appeals court overturned the convictions last year, finding misconduct by a juror who consulted a lawyer during deliberations. The court also indicated that it would have rejected prosecutors' appeal of the one-day sentence if it had upheld the convictions.

Let's be clear: it wasn't the outrageous conduct of the Federal Prosecutor or the judge who removed anything exculpatory from the evidence allowed to be presented, as well as crushing any mention whatsoever of "medical marijuana", a household term in California.

It was a juror who talked with a lawyer, trying to get unauthorized information about the trial.

The feds were - and still are - really pissed that Ed's not languishing in a federal prison they took a stab at other charges JUST to try and get him in jail:

The tax and money-laundering charges that Breyer dismissed were punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors have said in a court filing that they would not seek additional imprisonment on the cultivation charges.

Despite the gerrymandering and all-out bullshit of the trial, it did not result in what the feds wanted and Rosenthal thumbed his nose at them.

They re-submitted new charges of tax evasion - of all things - and those were slapped down as "mean-spirited and vindictive" by Justice Breyer.

Now a PATRIOT Act-appointed Interim Judge Attorney - a direct political appointment by Alberto Gonzalez, Team Bush's replacement for Ashcroft and apologist of torture and political firings - quickly gets down to making a THIRD attempt to put Rosenthal in jail?

Can you not see the sheer priority of this?

This is another example of political ideology run amok in a culture of control that is crazed with their unlimited power. Cannabis prohibition is a significant element of that power and it should be damaged through reform of cannabis laws.

Real democratic party values should want to end this crap by moving the nation towards ending cannabis prohibition, defunding the DEA, releasing America's large number of what are essentially political prisoners - which is what Ed will be if they get their way - and moving on to address other significant social problems with law enforcement freed-up from meaningless wastes of time and resources.

And a major tool for demolishing the Constitution can be taken away.