Judge assails sentencing laws / He reluctantly imposes a 55-year prison term (must read)

"To sentence Mr. Angelos to prison for essentially the rest of his life is unjust, cruel and even irrational," U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell said.

That said, however, Cassell said he had no choice but to follow the statutes and sentence 25-year-old Weldon Angelos to prison for more than half a century. But in doing so, he called on President Bush to commute Angelos' sentence to one more in line with his crime. The judge suggested 18 years and asked Congress to revisit the mandatory-minimum laws that required the term.

The sentence was handed down in front of a full courtroom of Angelos' family and friends, as well as legal observers, many of whom expected Cassell to declare unconstitutional the mandatory-minimum sentencing laws that governed Angelos' sentence.

Angelos' loved ones, including his wife and two young sons, were in tears upon hearing Cassell's decision. Defense attorney Jerome Mooney also expressed disappointment.

"We just saw the effect of a Congress concerned about their seats and re-election instead of justice," Mooney said, saying the harsh sentencing laws prove legislators are more concerned with being viewed as tough on crime rather than the imposition of fair punishments on criminal offenders.

To mandate a term that would keep the young father behind bars until he is 80 years old, Mooney said, is "unjust, and Congress should be ashamed of themselves."

Angelos, the founder of the Utah-based rap music label Extravagant Records, initially faced at least a 61 1/2-year sentence for the 16 criminal counts of which he was convicted in December. The bulk of that term — the 55 years imposed Tuesday — is based on just three firearms charges for carrying a gun during two drug sales and for keeping additional firearms at his Fort Union apartment.

Cassell imposed just one day for the additional 13 drug, firearm and money-laundering charges.

The case has garnered the attention of legal experts across the country, who have been following Cassell's moves since June, when he declared the federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional in the case of a Utah man convicted of child pornography. That ruling came on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that called the constitutionality of the guidelines into question.

Mooney, joined by 29 former legal officials from across the nation, had asked Cassell to find that the onerous mandatory-minimum term in the Angelos case constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The defense also argued the firearm statute is not applied equally to all criminal defendants, a violation of Angelos' equal-protection rights.

And although Cassell appeared to agree with the defense on nearly every point, the judge, in a lengthy opinion released immediately following Tuesday's hearing, said his analysis failed to meet the legal threshold required to find a statute unconstitutional. Thus, he said, he was required to impose the "Draconian" prison sentence.

"Our constitutional system of government requires the court to follow the law, not its own personal views about what the law ought to be," the judge wrote.

Federal prosecutors have maintained throughout the case that Cassell had no choice but to impose the mandatory-minimum sentence. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Lund argued Tuesday that lawmakers passed the firearms statute — which requires a five-year mandatory-minimum sentence for the first charge and a 25-year term for each count thereafter — with the clear intent to address the growing problem of mixing drugs and firearms.

Attorney Jerome Mooney talks to the media after his client Weldon Angelos was sentenced to prison, calling the virtually lifelong term unjust.

"Drugs and gun violence are an endemic problem in this country," Lund said. "There's a huge societal impact."

Angelos' sentence simply reinforces the message Congress intended and will serve as an important deterrent, Lund said.

"People who engage in armed violent crime or armed drug dealing are going to face very serious consequences," he said.

Critics of the legal mandate, however, question the fairness of a method that doesn't allow judges to tailor a sentence to fit a particular crime or criminal defendant.

"Judicial discretion has always been the heart and soul of the American justice system," said Monica Pratt, of the Washington D.C.-based organization Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

Margaret Plane, staff attorney for the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, agreed.

"That's why this case is such a great example," Plane said. "(Mandatory-minimum) laws apply without regard to the offense type, without regard to the particular offender. It's really kind of a one-size-fits-all approach, and that's not how our justice system should necessarily work."

Despite his ultimate finding, University of Utah law professor Erik Luna commended Cassell for addressing the matter at all.

"Judge Cassell did a very brave thing in even raising the issue," said Luna, an outspoken critic of federal sentencing laws. "We need to take this to the next level, which is to talk to the politicians. . . . I hope and pray some day that sanity will come back to the system."

thanks, I did not know that. so it works out to about 47 years at best. I agreee with the judge that it is excessive. I wonder if this harsh sentence will have any deterrence effect. probably not. the people who are doing these kinds of things are not paying attention to what is happening in the news, and they don't read FR. one thing for sure it will keep this guy from engaging in criminal activity until he is too old to care about getting rich the easy way. furthermore, it might cause his children to think seriously about the consequences before they follow his example.

"I wonder if this harsh sentence will have any deterrence effect. probably not. the people who are doing these kinds of things are not paying attention to what is happening in the news, and they don't read FR."

I think you pretty much nailed it there. If there were only three or four people out there doing smaller scale pot deals like this guy was this type of sentence might make a difference. But the reality is that there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of small time pot dealers out there and their ranks are constantly being replenished.

You are also right that this guy probably won't be engaging in more criminal activity out in the free world. That's good I suppose but in reality we can't lock everyone who commits crimes like he did for the rest of their lives. It would bankrupt us. And while many comment that the people like this ought to be taken out and summarily executed, that isn't realistic either in our society. In reality these cases would have to be litigated to the full extent at the trial level and they'd all be appealed. Our trial courts couldn't handle all of the litigation that necessarily comes with so many death penalty cases, nor could the appellate courts.

People who are deterable are deterred even by short prison sentences. I deal with people all the time who have been in prison and/or are on their way to prison. Almost all of them are terrified by the thought of even short stints in prison or even jail. No one wants to go there, even for a short time. But some people are going to commit crimes even though they risk going to prison, even if it could mean they'll go for a really long time. The length of the possible sentence doesn't really seem to matter, and it doesn't really seem to matter that much to those who are deterred by prison either. If they know they'll go even for a short time if they are caught, they won't do whatever it is that will land them in prison.

Personally I think pot should be legal and sold at the pot store, but it's not legal and people who break the law ought to be punished. But I think four or five years would have been more than enough to get this guy's attention and to deter whoever might be deterred. If he was selling to children or trafficking in huge quantities the punishment should have been worse, but I haven't read anything that would suggest he was doing either. The news reports say he sold a few hundred dollars worth of pot on a few occasions and that an informant claimed he was carrying a weapon during these transactions. It was his first offense. Fifty-five years for that seems a little on the harsh side to me and it's not only harsh for him, but it's a waste of my tax dollars. There are plenty of really bad people out there who need to be locked up for life for the sake of protecting us all. We shouldn't be wasting a prison bed for a half a century on fairly petty first time offenders like this. Stupid policies like this are why we waste billions and billions of dollars locking up more people per capita and in total than any other country in the world. There is nothing conservative about that.

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