Culture
LAW & JUSTICE: Doubts Follow Hewlett Packard, Marijuana Verdicts
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Former HP chair Patricia Dunn had spying charges against her dismissed, in part to ease her battle with ovarian cancer. On the same day, Angel Raich, a California resident suffering from a brain tumor, lost her appeal in a suit against federal drug laws that make her use of doctor-prescribed marijuana a prosecutable offense. San Francisco Chronicle columnist David Lazarus says the dismissal of Dunn’s charges, and the sentencing of three other defendants to 96 hours community service, amounts to a slap on the wrist for commonplace business spying. Critics said the case was shaky, and that then-California Attorney General Bill Lockyer pursued the HP spying scandal to boost his campaign for state treasurer — a charge Lockyer’s camp denies. The Raich case is equally convoluted.