News Feature

As of today, Thursday, December 6, 2012, marijuana possession is legal in the state of Washington. Under the I-502 initiative passed by the state's voters last month, adults 21 and older can now legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana (or 16 ounces of marijuana-infused edibles) without fear of arrest or criminal prosecution.

The date comes just one day after the 80th anniversary of the end of alcohol Prohibition and could mark the beginning of the end for marijuana prohibition in the United States. Colorado voters also legalized marijuana, and it will be legal to possess an ounce there -- and grow up to six plants -- sometime between now and January 5, the last day the governor has to ratify the November election results.

Alaska had been the only state to allow the possession of small amounts of marijuana. But, citing the state constitution's privacy protections, Alaska courts found that right only existed in the privacy of one's home.

Emboldened by the popular vote in Colorado and Washington, legislators in at least four states so far have now filed or will soon file marijuana legalization bills, with more to follow. And in states where the initiative process is allowed, activists are chomping at the bit in a race to be the next to legalize it at the ballot box (although they may want to wait for 2016, when the presidential race increases liberal turnout). And a spate of public opinion polls released since the election show support for legalization nationwide now cracking the 50% barrier.

While the federal government may attempt to block efforts to tax and regulate legal marijuana commerce in the two states, it cannot block them from removing marijuana offenses from their criminal codes. Nor can it make them reinstate them. News reports have noted that the federal government has no plans to intervene in Washington state's legalization today.

I-502 isn't a free for all. It remains a criminal offense to grow or distribute marijuana, and the state-licensed producers and stores for legal cultivation and sales and regulations governing them are a year away. There is no way in the meanwhile to legally buy marijuana. You can't smoke it in public (though that proscription is unlikely to hold for today at least), or drive in a vehicle with a lit joint (an offense equivalent to open container laws). If you live or work on federal property, you are still subject to federal drug laws. And if you're under 21, you're out of luck.

But, those caveats aside, pot possession is legal today in Washington, with sales and production coming, and that's a big deal.

"Washington state and Colorado made history on Election Day by becoming not just the first two states in the country -- but the first political jurisdictions anywhere in the world -- to approve the legal regulation of marijuana," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "The only way federal marijuana prohibition is going to end is by voters and legislators in other states doing just what folks in those two states just did."

"This is incredibly significant," said freshly minted Marijuana Policy Project communications director Mason Tvert, who just took the job after leading the Colorado Amendment 64 campaign to victory. "This is having a major impact on public perceptions and is showing that times are changing and a majority of people in various areas are ready to take these steps."

"This is the single most important event that has occurred in 75 year of marijuana prohibition," said Keith Stroup, founder and currently counsel for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "The change in the perception of what is possible has been dramatic. Now, elected officials and state legislatures all over the country are honestly considering the option of tax and regulate where before November that was generally perceived as a radical proposal."

The election results are shifting the parameters of the discussion, the silver-haired attorney and activist said.

"Several states are considering full legalization now, and that makes decriminalization sound like a moderate step, which could work in a lot of Southern and Midwestern states where they're perhaps not quite ready yet to set up a regulated market," Stroup pointed out. "The context of the public policy debate has totally changed as a result of Colorado and Washington. It's as dramatic as anything I've witnessed in my lifetime."

While reformers are elated, author and marijuana scholar Martin Lee had a slightly more sober assessment.

"It's way too early to tell whether I-502 in Washington state signals the death knell of marijuana prohibition in the United States," said Lee, who recently published Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana -- Medical, Recreational, and Scientific.

"The cultural momentum in the United States favors marijuana legalization, but the political response, thus far, has been lagging," Lee noted. "Political change can sometimes happen very quickly -- think of the sudden demise of Soviet Bloc Communism after the Berlin Wall unexpectedly toppled in 1989. Swift, dramatic change seems possible with respect to cannabis prohibition, which is based on lies and could collapse like a house of cards. But powerful political interests in the United States -- in particular law enforcement -- have long benefited from the war on drugs and they are reluctant to throw in the towel."

Lee also raised the specter of law enforcement retaliation, especially against some of its easiest targets.

"My biggest concern is that the new state law in Washington will do little to prevent or discourage law enforcement from selectively targeting and harassing young people, especially young African-Americans and Latinos. Racial profiling is endemic in Washington state and throughout the United States," he said.

"It's also disconcerting that I-502 includes a zero tolerance provision for under 21-year-old drivers, who could be punished severely if blood tests show any trace of THC metabolites (breakdown products) in their system. Because THC metabolites can remain in the body for four weeks or longer, blood and urine tests for marijuana can't measure impairment. What's to stop law enforcement in Washington from randomly testing and arresting minority youth under the guise of public safety?"

It remains to be seen just how the DUID provision will work out, either for young drivers or for drivers over 21, who face a presumption of impaired driving if THC levels are over a specified standard. The record from other states with either zero tolerance or per se DUID laws suggest they make little difference in DUID arrest rates, perhaps because of probable cause standards needed to conduct blood tests or the time and complexity involved in doing so.

Regardless of valid concerns, the fact remains that the wall of marijuana prohibition in the US has just had a huge hole punched in it. And the margins of victory in Colorado and Washington -- each initiative won with 55% of the vote -- leave breathing room for activists in other states to consider not including such controversial provisions, which were seen by proponents as necessary to actually win the vote.

As veteran activist Stroup put it, despite the contentiousness and the sops to the opposition, for marijuana activists, "This is a great time to be alive. I wish folks like Mezz Mezrow, Louis Armstrong, and Allen Ginsberg, who helped form LEMAR (Legalize Marijuana), then Amorphia, which morphed into NORML, could have been around to see this."

While Stroup took a moment to look backward, DPA's Nadelmann was looking forward.

"Now, the race is on as to who will be first to leapfrog the Dutch and implement a full legal regulatory system for marijuana:  Washington, Colorado or Uruguay!” he told the Chronicle.

Tuesday morning, former Baltimore narcotics officer Neill Franklin delivered a letter signed by 73 current and former police officers, judges, prosecutors, and federal agents to Attorney General Eric Holder at the Justice Department in downtown Washington , DC, urging him not to ignore the wishes of voters in Colorado and Washington state who voted to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana.

Franklin is the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), which supported Amendment 64 in Colorado and Initiative 502 in Washington. Both measures won with 55% of the vote in this month's elections.

"As fellow law enforcement and criminal justice professionals we respectfully call upon you to respect and abide by the democratically enacted laws to regulate marijuana in Colorado and Washington," the letter said. "This is not a challenge to you, but an invitation -- an invitation to help return our profession to the principles that made us enter law enforcement in the first place."

The Obama administration's response to the legalization votes could help define its place in the history books, LEAP warned.

"One day the decision you are about to make about whether or not to respect the people's will may well come to be the one for which you are known. The war on marijuana has contributed to tens of thousands of deaths both here and south of the border, it has empowered and expanded criminal networks and it has destroyed the mutual feeling of respect once enjoyed between citizens and police. It has not, however, reduced the supply or the demand of the drug and has only served to further alienate -- through arrest and imprisonment -- those who consume it," the letter said.

"At every crucial moment in history, there comes a time when those who derive their power from the public trust forge a new path by disavowing their expected function in the name of the greater good. This is your moment. As fellow officers who have seen the destruction the war on marijuana has wrought on our communities, on our police forces, on our lives, we hope that you will join us in seeking a better world," the letter concluded.

The LEAP letter is only the latest manifestation of efforts by legalization supporters to persuade the federal government to stand back and not interfere with state-level attempts to craft schemes to tax and regulate marijuana commerce. Members of the Colorado congressional delegation have introduced legislation that would give the states freedom to act, while other members of Congress, notably Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX), have called on the Obama administration to "respect the wishes of voters in Colorado and Washington." Frank and Paul are cosponsors of a pending federal legalization bill.

"We have sponsored legislation at the federal level to remove criminal penalties for the use of marijuana because of our belief in individual freedom," Frank and Paul wrote in a letter to President Obama last week. "We recognize that this has not yet become national policy, but we believe there are many strong reasons for your administration to allow the states of Colorado and Washington to set the policies they believe appropriate in this regard, without the federal government overriding the choices made by the voters of these states."

"We seem to be at a turning point in how our society deals with marijuana," said Franklin Tuesday. "The war on marijuana has funded the expansion of drug cartels, it has destroyed community-police relations and it has fostered teenage use by creating an unregulated market where anyone has easy access. Prohibition has failed. Pretty much everyone knows it, especially those of us who dedicated our lives to enforcing it. The election results show that the people are ready to try something different. The opportunity clearly exists for President Obama and Attorney General Holder to do the right thing and respect the will of the voters."

"During his first term, President Obama really disappointed those of us who hoped he might follow through on his campaign pledges to respect state medical marijuana laws," continued Franklin. "Still, I'm hopeful that in his second term he'll realize the political opportunity that exists to do the right thing. Polls show 80% support for medical marijuana, and in Colorado marijuana legalization got more votes than the president did in this most recent election."

"From a public safety perspective, it's crucial that the Obama administration let Colorado and Washington fully implement the marijuana regulation laws that voters approved on Election Day," added LEAP member Tony Ryan, a retired 36-year Denver Police veteran. "There's nothing the federal government can do to force these states to arrest people for marijuana possession, but if it tries and succeeds in stopping the states from regulating and taxing marijuana sales, cartels and gangs will continue to make money selling marijuana to people on the illegal market. Plus, the states won't be able to take in any new tax revenue to fund schools."

At a Tuesday noon press conference, Franklin and other LEAP members hammered home the point.

"LEAP members have spent the majority of their careers on the front line of the war on drugs and have seen the failure of prohibition," he said. "We call now to end prohibition and embrace a new drug policy based on science, facts, and the medical field."

Former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper told the press conference the war on marijuana was essentially a war on youth, especially minority youth, that sours police-community relations.

"I have come to believe that the war on marijuana has made enemies of many law-abiding Americans, especially many young, black, Latino, and poor Americans," Stamper said. "The law and the mass incarceration behind it have set up a real barrier between police and the community, particularly ethnic communities."

Legalization and regulation will help change that negative dynamic, Stamper said.

"This frees up police to concentrate on violent, predatory crimes, those crimes that really scare people, drive property values down, and diminish the quality of our lives," he said. "We're convinced that by working with the community, including those victimized by these laws, we can build an authentic partnership between police and the community and create true community policing, which demands respect for local law enforcement. By legalizing we have a chance to significantly reduce race and class discrimination. Watch what we do, we will use these states as a laboratory, and the sky will not fall."

"I joined this movement when I was made aware the war on drugs was a war on our community," said Alice Huffman, president of the California NAACP. "Instead of being protected, we were being targeted. We don't feel like the police are protecting us; instead, they have declared war on our young men and women. The amount of resources being used in this war to divide the community is why we have so many incidents between law enforcement and our community. We know that come Friday and Saturday night there will be a ring of law enforcement personnel ringing our community looking to make those low-level drug arrests."

"I believe the regulation and legalization of marijuana is not only long overdue, but will make our communities safer," Huffman continued. "I am very hopeful that our president, who has some experience of his own with marijuana use, which didn't prevent him from becoming a strong leader, will see the light and get rid of these approaches that do nothing but condemn our people to a life of crime because they have felonies and are no longer employable. Instead of treating them like criminals, maybe we can treat them like people with health problems."

The Obama administration has yet to respond substantively to this month's victories for marijuana legalization. Nothing it says or does will stop marijuana from becoming legal to possess (and to grow in Colorado) by next month in Washington and by early January at the latest in Colorado, but it could attempt to block state-level attempts to tax and regulate commercial cultivation and distribution, and it has some months to decide whether to do so. Tuesday's letter and press conference were part of the ongoing effort to influence the administration to, as Franklin put it, "do the right thing."

Colorado voters made history Tuesday night, passing a constitutional amendment to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana and becoming the first state in the US to break with marijuana prohibition. Hours later, voters in Washington state followed suit, passing a legalization initiative there, but a similar effort in Oregon came up short.

Even though marijuana legalization didn't achieve a trifecta, two states have now decisively rejected marijuana prohibition, sending an electrifying message to the rest of the country and the world. Tuesday's election also saw a medical marijuana initiative pass in Massachusetts, a sentencing reform initiative pass in California, and a limited legalization initiative pass in Detroit. Medical marijuana initiatives failed in Arkansas and Montana. [Editor's Note: Look for Chronicle news briefs soon on the election results we have yet to publish stories on.]

"The victories in Colorado and Washington are of historic significance not just for Americans but for all countries debating the future of marijuana prohibition in their own countries," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "This is now a mainstream issue, with citizens more or less divided on the issue but increasingly inclined to favor responsible regulation of marijuana over costly and ineffective prohibitionist policies."

According to the Colorado secretary of state's office, Amendment 64 was leading comfortably with 55% of the vote, compared to 45% voting "no." But an early lead was enough for Amendment 64 supporters and foes alike to call the victory. Rising excitement at Casselman's, the downtown Denver bar where campaign supporters gathered, turned to gleeful pandemonium as Colorado media began calling the result little more than two hours after the polls closed.

"Colorado voters have decided to take a more sensible approach to how we deal with marijuana in this state," said Mason Tvert, director of the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which had brought together state marijuana reform groups such as SAFER and Sensible Colorado with national reform organizations such as the Marijuana Policy Project, Drug Policy Action, and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition in a well-organized and well-funded winning campaign.

"Today, the people of Colorado have rejected the failed policy of marijuana prohibition," said Sensible Colorado's Brian Vicente. "Thanks to their votes, we will now reap the benefits of regulation. We will create new jobs, generation million of dollars in tax revenue, and allow law enforcement to focus on serious crimes. It would certainly be a travesty if the Obama administration used its power to impose marijuana prohibition upon a state whose people have declared, through the democratic process, that they want it to end."

"I'm so happy we not only did this, we did it right," said MPP's Steve Fox, who had worked closely with Tvert, Vicente, and Yes on 64 spokesperson Betty Aldworth to bring the effort to fruition. "Now, it is legal in the state constitution to possess and grow marijuana. It can't be repealed on a whim; it is permanent. Thirty days from now, any veteran -- any person -- in this state can use marijuana."

"Colorado is the starting point, the tipping point, but it's not the end point," vowed MPP executive director Rob Kampia, who promised to take the effort to more states in the future.

Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), a staunch opponent of Amendment 64, conceded its victory as well Tuesday night. "The voters have spoken and we have to respect their will," he said in a statement. "This will be a complicated process, but we intend to follow through. That said, federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don't break out the Cheetos or goldfish too quickly."

According to the Washington secretary of state's office , as of 9:28pm Pacific time Tuesday, Initiative 502 was holding a comfortable lead of 55% to 45%. Sponsored by New Approach Washington, the initiative had excited opposition among segments of the pot-smoker and medical marijuana communities, but created a carefully crafted and financially well-backed campaign featuring a series of establishment endorsers.

I-502 legalizes the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults 21 and over, but does not allow for personal cultivation, except by or for medical marijuana patients. It will license marijuana cultivation and retail and wholesale sales, with restrictions on advertising. Regulation will be the remit of the state liquor control board, which will have to come up with rules by December 2013. The measure creates a 25% excise tax on marijuana sales, with 40% of revenues dedicated to the general fund and 60% dedicated to substance abuse prevention, research, and healthcare. It also creates a per se driving under the influence standard of 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood.

By contrast, Colorado's Amendment 64 allows adults 21 and over to possess up to an ounce of marijuana or six marijuana plants, three of which can be mature. It will create a system of state-licensed cultivation, manufacturing, and testing facilities and state-licensed retail stores. Local governments would have the option of regulating or prohibiting such facilities. The amendment also requires the state legislature to enact legislation governing industrial hemp cultivation, processing, and sale, and to create an excise tax on wholesale marijuana sales. The first $40 million of that annual revenue will be dedicated to building public schools.

"Marijuana policy reform remains an issue where the people lead and the politicians follow, but Washington state shows that many politicians are beginning to catch up," said Nadelmann, noting that the Obama administration had failed to denounce the initiatives. "That bodes well, both states' prospects of implementing their new laws without undue federal interference."

In Oregon, Measure 80, the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA), didn't fare so well. As of 11:30pm Pacific time, it was losing 45% to 55%, with 69% of the vote counted.

It came late to the ballot compared to the efforts in Colorado and Washington, could not demonstrate majority support in polls, and, as a result, did not manage to attract substantial funding from outside donors, sealing its fate.

But despite the loss in Oregon, when it comes to passing groundbreaking marijuana legalization initiatives in the United States, two out of three ain't bad.

special to Drug War Chronicle by investigative journalist Clarence Walker, cwalkerinvestigate@gmail.com

In what could become an historic case, a Florida doctor acquitted of drug dealing charges over his prescribing practices is asking the US Supreme Court to reinstate a $600,000 award made to him by a lower court after federal prosecutors were found to have engaged in misconduct that was "vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith." That language comes from the Hyde Amendment, enacted in 1997, which gives federal judges the power to force the government to pay attorney's fees to acquitted defendants if the actions of those prosecutors met that standard of misconduct.

The case of Florida physician Dr. Ali Shaygan has been closely watched by pain-management doctors -- an area in which the federal government has waged a fierce "war on prescription doctors" -- a war fueled by a rising death toll in recent years from prescription drug overdoses in America, but also preceding that rise. Since 2003, according to DEA, hundreds of physicians across the nation have been charged in federal or state court for illegally dispensing narcotic pain medicine to patients.

This past August, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the trial court decision awarding the money to Shaygan, who had operated a Miami pain clinic. He was acquitted in March 2009 of 131 counts of illegally distributing narcotics to patients, including one case where a patient died of an overdose.

Shaygan's attorneys charged that two Assistant US Attorneys, Sean Cronin and Andrea Hoffman, as well as a DEA agent, had acted "vexatiously" and withheld materially important evidence after Shaygan was originally charged in a 23-count indictment. US Circuit Court Judge Alan Gold, who presided over the high-profile trial, agreed that prosecutors violated disclosure requirements by withholding information from the defense and the court and ordered the cash award.

Judge Gold also accused the government of launching a separate "tactical" effort to disqualify the doctor's attorney, David Markus, shortly before the trial began. In that effort, which Gold characterized as part of a scheme to undermine the defendant's rights to a fair trial, the prosecutors failed to notify the defense that the DEA had attempted to manipulate two witnesses in the case into trying to entrap Markus into paying off witnesses to give favorable testimony at the trial to help the doctor beat the rap.

Following a sanction hearing after the doctor's acquittal in 2009, Judge Gold issued a scathing ruling against the prosecutors. The government conduct was so "profoundly disturbing that it raises troubling issues about the integrity of those who wield enormous power over the people they prosecute," Gold concluded.

After Gold requested that the Justice Department investigate the government's misconduct, prosecutor Cronin conceded to the Miami Herald, "We should have done a better job," but insisted that "at no time was I acting in bad faith."

He said he authorized secret recordings of attorney Markus because a witness, Courtney Tucker, had told a DEA agent the defense might be trying to tamper with her testimony. Yet Tucker contradicted Cronin's claim when she testified that a DEA agent had tried to pressure her to tailor her testimony to bolster the prosecution's case against Dr. Shaygan.

When federal prosecutors appealed the cash award to the 11th Circuit, a sharply divided panel overturned it, holding that Gold had overreached and wrongly interpreted the Hyde Amendment by applying the incorrect legal standard for awarding the fees under the statue. The appeals court majority also held that "as long as a prosecutor had an objectively reasonable basis in law (not frivolous and not vexatious), an award of attorney fees under the Hyde Amendment is improper." One judge concluded that the overall prosecution and allegations on the original indictment were "objectively valid."

But in a harsh dissent, Judge Beverly Martin wrote that the majority opinion "will render trial judges mere spectators of extreme government misconduct."

Markus told the Chronicle the appeals court reversal was not what he expected. "The decision was surprising given how the oral argument went and how thorough Judge Gold's order was," Markus said, adding that he was appealing to the Supreme Court.

Now a coalition of former federal judges and prosecutors, organized by the bipartisan group the Constitution Project has signed onto an amicus brief supporting Markus's writ of certiorari asking the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court decision and reinstate the cash award in US v. Shaygan.

"When a court bends the law to excuse a prosecutor's bad faith, public confidence in the criminal justice system suffers," the Constitution Project brief said.

Just Another Pain Doctor Prosecution

The wheels of justice in Dr. Shaygan's case began turning on June 9, 2007, when one of the long-term patients at his pain clinic, James Brendan Downey, died of a drug overdose from a fatal combination of prescribed methadone and illegal cocaine. Shaygun had prescribed the methadone to Downey two days before he died, and an autopsy found that the levels of methadone in his blood alone were enough to kill him.

In a subsequent undercover sting operation, two Florida police officers posed as potential patients at Shaygan's office to determine how easily they could obtain prescribed narcotics. Federal prosecutors said both officers obtained a prescription for controlled substances on their first visit without presenting medical records, and that Shaygan only administered minimal physical examination.

On February 8, 2008, the Southern Florida US Attorneys Office filed a 23-count indictment against Shaygan alleging that "the doctor distributed and dispensed controlled substances outside the scope of professional practice unintended for legitimate medical purposes in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841."

Three days later, DEA agents arrested Shaygan at his office. Agents seized Shaygan's active patient files and even confiscated his leather-bound daily planner. Prosecutors said that DEA agents reported that Shaygan allegedly made a statement to the effect, "I want to cooperate." On May 14, Markus filed a motion to suppress his client's statement during his arrest.

At a post-hearing on the suppression motion held on August 2008, Markus clashed with lead prosecutor Cronin over Markus's attempt to keep his client's alleged statement from being heard by the jury. Cronin threatened Markus with an enhanced prosecution of his client if he persisted in that strategy.

"Cronin told me that if we litigated the suppression issues, there would be no more plea discussions, and that if I went after his witnesses (DEA agents), there would be a 'seismic shift' in the way he would prosecute the case against Mr. Shaygan," Markus said.

Markus dismissed Cronin's threat and forged ahead with the suppression hearing, offering up damaging testimony by Shaygan, who testified that DEA agents, while flashing their weapons, continued to interrogate him, despite his request to speak with a lawyer. Agents denied this happened. After hearing from a defense witness that he overheard Shaygan say, "May I please have my lawyer," Judge Gold granted the motion to suppress, which barred prosecutors from using Shaygan's statements during the trial.

Then, playing legal hardball, prosecutor Cronin made good on his threat, filing an additional 108 drug charges against Shaygan totaling hundreds of years in prison and bringing the total number of charges filed against him to 131. Cronin filed the extra charges after DEA agent Chris Wells located and interviewed Shaygan's former patients Carlos Vento, Trinity Clendening, Courtney Tucker and Andrew McQuarrie. These former patients would play a pivotal role in the misconduct allegations against federal prosecutors Cronin and Hoffman.

Before trial, prosecutors Cronin and Hoffman received a tip from DEA agent Wells that Shaygan's defense team might be tampering with the witnesses. Wells said one witness, Courtney Tucker, "was about to go south and not testify." Prosecutors relayed this new information to Karen Gilbert, the Assistant US Attorney in charge of the narcotics unit. Gilbert authorized DEA agent Wells to ask witnesses Tucker and Carlos Vento to record phone calls with the defense team and for the witnesses to ask attorney Markus for funds to testify that Dr. Shaygan had not overprescribed medication that killed James Downey. Vento later signed a confidential informant agreement with the DEA.

Trial Shenanigans

During a three-week trial in beginning in 2009, prosecutors characterized Dr. Shaygan as a drug dealer who recklessly sold prescriptions for dangerous narcotic painkillers, such as oxycodone and methadone, to increase his wealth. Prosecutor Cronin told the jury the government would prove that Shaygan's illegal distribution of methadone contributed to Mr. Downey's death. Jurors viewed evidence showing prescription bottles from Shaygan found in Downey's bedroom, where he died in his sleep. Downey's girlfriend, testifying for the government, said her boyfriend had obtained methadone from Shaygan hours before he died.

But the girlfriend also undercut the prosecution's case by testifying that Shaygan had questioned and cautioned Downey about the large amount of methadone he had requested. Defense attorney Markus further undercut the prosecution case by presenting evidence of additional medicine bottles at the scene prescribed by other doctors.

For the defense, renowned expert forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden testified that when Downey used multiple prescribed drugs there was no verifiable way to conclude the drugs given to him by Dr. Shaygan actually caused his death.

Then, in a dramatic twist right out of Perry Mason, former Shaygan patient and government witness Trinity Clendening let slip that he had recorded for the DEA a telephone call he made to to Markus's office to solicit payment for testifying on Shaygan's behalf. A recording later heard in court showed that that Markus had directly refused to offer bribes. "I am not paying money for anything," he said on the tape.

Markus was furious. During a hearing outside the presence of the jury, he hammered the witness. Clendening, now unraveling the government's deceit, revealed the whole scheme to set up Markus for a witness tampering charge. Markus attacked the prosecutors relentlessly over their withholding evidence of the scheme. In closing arguments, Markus rhetorically compared the prosecutorial misconduct in Shaygan's case with the infamous Salem Witch trials, and told the jury it had been misled by the government's flagrant violation of the law through withholding evidence that the defense had asked for under the law and not received.

Judge Gold instructed jurors that they were legally bound to consider the prosecutor's violations of the law during their deliberations over Shaygan's guilt or innocence. After deliberating four hours, the jury acquitted Dr. Shaygan on March 12, 2009.

Shaygan's relatives, friends and colleagues erupted with cheers after hearing the verdict, and jurors hugged Shaygan as he left the courtroom.

"I feel vindicated," Shaygan told the Miami Herald. "I feel that my life can move forward again."

"This verdict sends a message that justice prevails," Markus added.

But justice hasn't prevailed just yet. The federal prosecutors who engaged in the misconduct have not been punished for their actions, either criminally, professionally, or financially. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision reversing the $600,000 award for misconduct that is "vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith" remains the last word on the affair -- unless the Supreme Court agrees to take the case.

At least, Dr. Ali Shaygan is out from under his legal woes and, having had his license to prescribe medicine reinstated, he is once again helping patients.