Things I Know I Know

I read this headline to a Talkleft post--Feds to Appeal Marijuana Guru Sentence--and I thought--cool!--the feds are so ashamed of themselves that they're appealing their own convication.

Alas, how wrong I was:

Today comes news that the Government is appealing the sentence [of Ed Rosenthal who was growing medical marijuana with city government sanction].

Rosenthal was convicted last spring of growing pot in an Oakland warehouse. The marijuana growing operation, which supplied a dispensary on Sixth Street in San Francisco, was legal under California law and had been inspected and signed off on by Oakland city officials.

But because federal law does not recognize medical pot, Judge Charles Breyer excluded any testimony dealing with California law, which allows for the medical use of weed with doctors' approval. After the trial, a majority of the jurors who convicted Rosenthal said they would have reached a different verdict had they been allowed to consider the purposes of the growth and that Rosenthal was acting in accordance with local and state laws.

The San Francisco Examiner says it best:

OH, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, why don't the feds just give it a rest?

After that, we like Ed's comment:

Rosenthal also said he thinks the appeal is a waste of taxpayers' money. "If they have all that money, why don't they build some schools?" he asked. [from Bay City News]