Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Winter 2006
ISSN
1090-3968
Publisher
Roger Williams University School of Law
Language
en-US
Abstract
In today's highly punitive culture, perhaps Weldon Angelos' fifty-five-year sentence does not seem unusual. He's a 25-year-old man who was convicted in December 2003 of selling marijuana, possessing firearms while drug dealing, and money laundering. 3 The facts proven at trial are that on three occasions in June and July, 2002, Angelos sold eight one-ounce bags of marijuana for $350 each to a government informant. 4 The purchaser testified that a firearm was visible during two of these drug sales.5 Police seized another gun from Angelos' home five months later pursuant to a warrant.6 At no time was he accused of using or threatening to use these weapons.
What's so special about this case? There are many equally long sentences imposed daily in federal and state courts throughout the United States.10 However, even in these harsh times it is unusual for a first offender, convicted of a crime not involving violence or the threat of violence, to receive a life sentence. The sentence in Angelos is an anomaly, and Judge Cassell's response to having to impose the sentence makes it special. He balked at doing what seemed to him outrageous and unfair and set this case on an unusual procedural journey. He called this sentencing his most difficult moment as a judge," but he did more than express his pain and frustration. Judge Cassell reached out to the jury, the legal community and beyond in an effort to resolve the conflict between his sense of justice and the law. In the end he did as many others who are equally disturbed by the straightjacket of federal sentencing have done: he sentenced Angelos to the mandatory minimum of fifty-five years in prison. 12
The Tenth Circuit affirmed Weldon Angelos' sentence. 13 That Court did not seize the opportunity presented by Judge Cassell to expand Eighth Amendment discourse. 14 Furthermore it rejected Judge Cassell's interpretation of Harmelin v. Michigan and his findings under the Harmelin standard.15 Weldon Angelos was not re-sentenced to a term proportionate to his crimes.16
This case has broader import, however, than the attempt to right the wrong done to Weldon Angelos. Judge Cassell's ambitious approach to the restrictions of mandatory sentences shows that judges can generate valuable data on evolving standards of decency and thereby give content to the Eighth Amendment. Judge Cassell's actions may augur a new wave of judicial decision-writing in which judges record their observations about evolving sentencing norms and in so doing expand the post-Booker sentencing discussion to include mandatory minimums.
Recommended Citation
Eva S. Nilsen,
Indecent Standards: The Case of U.S. versus Weldon Angelos
,
in
11
Roger Williams University Law Review
537
(2006).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3936
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Courts Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Judges Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons, Legal Remedies Commons
