Federal judge Charles R. Breyer sentenced Oakland marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal to one day in prison and a $1,000 fine on 4 June 2003, the most lenient sentence allowed under law.[1] Rosenthal had faced up to 100 years in prison and a $4.5 million fine for his January conviction on felony charges of marijuana cultivation and conspiracy.[1]
Federal agents had arrested Rosenthal in 2002 for growing marijuana to be supplied for medicinal use under the City of Oakland’s medical marijuana ordinance, which California’s 1996 proposition permitted but federal drug law did not.[1] DEA agents raided medical clubs and grow rooms across the San Francisco area on 12 February 2002, seizing 3,163 plants in total, some of them from Rosenthal’s Oakland grow room, where the city had made him an official consultant to its medical program.[2]
A trial without a medical defense
Judge Breyer barred Rosenthal from raising medical marijuana as a defense, and after convicting him several jurors said they had been misled, sought a new trial, and then wrote to the judge urging leniency.[1] At sentencing Breyer found Rosenthal could reasonably have believed he was acting legally, which let the court avoid minimum sentences of at least five years; Rosenthal left a free man with credit for a day already served, plus three years of court supervision.[1] NORML later recounted that the Ninth Circuit overturned his three felony convictions in 2006 because a juror had consulted outside counsel, while signaling it would likely leave the one-day sentence standing on any retrial.[3]
