It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again, Man!

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. – Albert Einstein

Actually, Einstein may have lifted the quote from an old Chinese proverb. Regardless, it seems that newly appointed interim U.S. Attorney Scott Schools has read neither, deciding to retry marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal on cultivation charges stemming (seedy pun intended) from Rosenthal’s having grown marijuana in 2003 for an Oakland, California medical marijuana program. Herewith, your tax dollars at work thanks to our vastly successful and eminently rational War Against Drugs:

Rosenthal has already been tried and convicted for these acts. Notwithstanding California law, federal law doesn’t recognize marijuana as medicine, so Rosenthal’s defense was not permitted to introduce evidence at the original trial of his relationship to the Oakland program, such evidence being ruled irrelevant. Even so, under the circumstances and despite minimum sentencing guidelines, Federal District Court Judge Charles Breyer sentenced Rosenthal to one day in jail, time already served, plus a fine and supervised release.

Still, it was a felony conviction. Rosenthal appealed and won at the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on grounds of juror misconduct. (One juror had improperly discussed the case with an attorney.) Reversing the earlier convictions and dismissing as moot the government’s cross-appeal regarding the sentencing, the three judge appeals court panel noted in dicta they “would not be inclined to disturb the court’s reasoned analysis underlying its sentencing determination.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office then indicted Rosenthal again, not only on the original counts but this time tacking on four additional counts of money laundering and five counts of filing false tax returns. Judge Breyer threw out the additional charges, determining they amounted to vindictive prosecution in response to Rosenthal having won his appeal and publicly criticized the trial and the prosecution after what amounted to a jaw-dropping open court admission by Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan that such vindictiveness was indeed the government's motive behind the new charges.

Still, the U.S. Attorney’s office now intends to proceed once again with the original counts before the same judge whose sentencing decision from the earlier conviction has essentially already been upheld on appeal. Brilliant!