Former federal judge Paul Cassell submitted a clemency petition letter reconsidering the mandatory sentencing of Weldon Angelos in 2004. Angelos was sentenced to jail time of 55 years for charges involving weapons possession and drug trafficking.
Angelos was owner and founder of Utah-based production company Extravagant Records and had no criminal record prior to his sentencing. In 2004, he was charged and found guilty of selling marijuana worth $350 to police informant three times. He was allegedly a gang member and was suspected of carrying firearms while drug dealing, Yahoo News reported Feb. 9.
The court sentenced him to 55 years imprisonment for 16 counts of drug trafficking, weapons possession and money laundering. The jail term was required by law, since gun possession during drug deals has a minimum five years for the first offense and another 25 years for subsequent offenses, reported The Salt Lake Tribune. Records from the Bureau of Prisons showed that, including all other jail term considerations, Angelos will be released on Nov. 18, 2051.
Cassell's clemency petition letter, however, may now allow for Angelos' sentence to be commuted by President Barack Obama, reports said. The letter said that Cassell was considering his sentencing and called it "unjust, cruel and even irrational." He added that it is unreasonable that such cases got higher sentences because of mandatory laws compared to charges of kidnapping, rape or second-degree murder. The sentencing pushed the former judge to step down from his position five years after the event.
"When the sentence for actual violence inflicted on a victim is dwarfed by a sentence for carrying guns to several drug deals, the implicit message to victims is that their pain and suffering counts for less than some abstract 'war on drugs,'" Cassell's letter said.
He also asserted that Angelos' sentence would have been lighter if he was sentenced today. President Obama is in favor of a bill lessening the mandatory jail terms for nonviolent offenders, Yahoo News noted.
A criminal justice bill, currently being discussed by U.S. legislators, is being pushed to allow lowering the prison terms of convicted felons, Politico reported Feb. 8. A proposal included revising Section 105 of the bill, which will allow so-called armed career criminals to have lower jail terms.
Some Senate Republicans opposed the bill, claiming that changing the bill would have felons involved in violent crimes have lower jail terms. Supporters, however, are now revising the proposal so that only convicts with nonviolent crimes will have the chance to have their mandatory sentences lessened.
Yahoo News reported that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals retained Cassell's sentence. Angelos' petition for a hearing was likewise not approved by the Supreme Court.
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