By Terrie Best – San
Diego Americans for Safe Access Court Support Coordinator
San Diego, CA - San Diego’s medical cannabis community saw
history in the making when the city’s Mayor, Bob Filner, showed up to a federal
hearing, sat with his arm around the defendant’s elderly mother and held a
press conference discussing jury nullification – calling the practice of
nullifying unjust laws by virtue of acquittal verdicts “the law of the land” –
and discussing his own fight against similar laws during the civil rights
movement.
The federal proceeding attended by Mayor Bob Filner was a
gag order hearing brought on by the U.S Attorney’s office in response to
criminal defense attorney Michael J. McCabe’s speaking out in a video about
U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy’s vindictive prosecution of his client Ronnie
Chang. The video, filmed by San Diego Americans
for Safe Access Chair, Chapter Coordinator, and former client of Mr. McCabe’s,
Eugene Davidovich can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR-dLMCqXtc&list=UUcFGz3C1GcFnp7yOIp0K8yA&index=14.
In the original motion to gag Mr. McCabe, the U.S Prosecutor,
Paul Starita, requested that not only
the McCabe video be removed from the San Diego Americans for Safe Access
website but that the San Diego ASA- run “Free Ronnie Chang” Facebook page be
wiped from the Internet as well. Mr.
McCabe is a supporter of SDASA but has no jurisdiction over the Chapter’s internet
activities.
The gag order motion was heard on Monday, May 20th
2013, before Judge Michael Anello in Dept.
3A of San Diego’s
federal courthouse. In beginning his
argument for the gag order, Starita shied away from the term “gag” in favor of
the less oppressive request to simply require that he and Mr. McCabe follow the
local rules of conduct by not “trying the case in the press” - a sharp
departure from Starita’s earlier demands.
In a well thought out argument, Heather Beugen, arguing on
behalf of Mr. McCabe, pointed out that the rules of conduct of the American Bar
Association (Rule 3.6 (a)) state counsel on either side may respond to opposing
party’s prejudicial statements to the press. Argument could be made that this is exactly
what Mr. McCabe did in the San Diego ASA video as he responded to the bold-faced
lies told by Duffy in her own statements to the press with regard to her brutal
crack down on state-legal medical cannabis collectives.
The result of the hearing had attorneys for both sides
stipulating to follow the local rules regarding pre-trail statements and no
formal order was given by his honor.
Ronnie Chang, a former medical cannabis collective operator
and victim of San Diego District
Attorney and failed Mayoral candidate Bonnie Dumanis’ 9/9/09 raids, sat through
the hearing in prison garb next to Mr. McCabe, while his mother Carmen Chang, was
seated next to Mayor Filner in the galley. Mrs. Chang could barely take her
eyes from her son, so distraught was she to see her boy so long (9 months) in custody. It was a heart-wrenching sight and not lost
on our Mayor who comforted her with gentle pats and kind words throughout the
hearing.
Immediately before and following the proceedings Mayor
Filner, asserting the gag order did not apply to him, made himself available to
speak to the press and what he had to say rocked medical cannabis activists
state-wide. His actions garnered the attention of FIJA.org (Fully Informed Jury
Association) the nation’s largest juror education project who later thanked the
Mayor and local activists in a statement on their website: http://fija.org/2013/05/21/san-diego-mayor-filner-urges-jury-nullification/.
Mayor Filner voiced so many brave, stirring statements,
frankly it’s hard to pick a favorite. At
one point when asked whether it was the Mayor’s place to interfere in federal
law, Filner replied “Making it clear to the federal government that we object
to this persecution is what leaders do,” calling Ronnie Chang a fine patriotic
citizen and flashing a compassionate smile at Mrs. Chang who stood with him in
the interview outside the courthouse.
The public is encouraged to watch the video, filmed by SDASA
Vice Chair Marcus Boyd, of just a portion of what May Filner had to say here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCn8M_Xz8mU&list=UUcFGz3C1GcFnp7yOIp0K8yA&index=1
Our Mayor is no stranger to activism, growing up in Pittsburgh,
his parents were union organizers and once entertained the great Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. in their home. The young
Bob Filner was so taken with King’s philosophy of non-violent civil action it
moved him to join the civil rights movement in Mississippi at the age of 18.
As a Freedom Rider, our Mayor was arrested in 1961 and spent
two months in a secluded cell along side the likes of Stokely Carmichael and John
Lewis. The case against the Freedom Rider
activists was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court also overturned the laws for racial
separation.
In Filner's own words he says "I've never been a
passive person. I've always felt that, if you think something should be
changed, it's your responsibility to actively pursue that change." Which is likely why he made this statement in
a press announcement several days before the hearing; “In cases like these, where Ronnie Chang will
face a jury of his peers, jurors may be faced with decisions about unjust laws.
There is a mechanism for the peoples’ will to prevail. It is called jury
nullification and holds that jurors have a right and even a duty to vote their
conscience if they feel the government is engaged in injustice. In voting to
acquit victims of unjust laws, jurors cannot be punished for their verdicts.”
Now, as a teenager I don’t know where my own head was but shamefully
I wasn’t fighting for the rights of downtrodden citizens. I admire this man greatly and even more so
when he took up the cause of Ronnie Chang and the implications jury
nullification would have in the fight for states to implement the compassionate
use of medical cannabis.
Mayor Filner knows what cannabis activist have come to
realize, this battle will end when the last arrest is made because the last
prosecuting body can no longer seat a jury of 12 people ignorant enough to
convict a fellow citizen for their choice in medicine or, in the words of
Graham Hancock, their right to be sovereign over their own consciousness.
Jury nullification has a rich history in the U.S. as evidenced by
this quote from Founding Father Alexander Hamilton: “That, in criminal cases, nevertheless, the court are
the constitutional advisers of the jury, in matters of law who may compromit
their consciences by lightly or rashly disregarding that advice; but may still
more compromit their consciences by following it, if, exercising their
judgments with discretion and honesty, they have a clear conviction that the
charge of the court is wrong.”
Alexander
Hamilton, from his argument in People v. Croswell, 3 Johns. Cas. 336 (1804).
We can expect much more from our Mayor and from the bottom
of my heart, thank you Bob Filner for your lion heart and, in the words of your
staff, your penchant for “Always doing what you feel is right.”
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