Angelos in America

This is kind of old news I guess, but to me it’s pretty damn pertinent.

With the recent (non)decision of the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear Weldon Angelos’ appeal the Utah resident has been damned to serve 55 years and one day in prison for dealing a little dope.

Actually, that’s not quite accurate, Angelos got about six for dealing the weed, and about 50 for possession. Of handguns.

Flashback to Paul Cassell’s courtroom November 2004.

It is Angelos’ first offense, the prosecution and defense both agree that Angelos should serve six and a half years for his crimes. Congress disagrees.

So “the court reluctantly concludes that it has no choice but to impose the 55 year sentence. While the sentence appears to be cruel, unjust, and irrational, in our system of separated powers Congress makes the final decisions as to appropriate criminal penalties.” *

Here is U.S. District Court Judge Paul Cassell in a statement given to the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives in March 2006.

“In United States v. Angelos, I had to sentence a twenty-four-year-old first offender who was a successful music executive with two young children. Because he was convicted of dealing marijuana and related offenses, both the government and the defense agreed that Mr. Angelos should serve about six-and-a-half years in prison. But there were three additional firearms offenses for which I also had to impose sentence. Two of those offenses occurred when Mr. Angelos carried a handgun to two $350 marijuana deals; the third when police found several additional handguns at his home when they executed a search warrant. For these three acts of possessing (not using or even displaying) these guns, the government insisted that Mr. Angelos should essentially spend the rest of his life in prison. Specifically, the government urged me to sentence Mr. Angelos to a prison term of no less than 61½ years – six years-and-a-half years for drug dealing followed by 55 years for three counts of possessing a firearm in connection with a drug offense. In support of its position, the government relied on a statute – 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) – which requires courts to impose a sentence of five years in prison the first time a drug dealer carries a gun and twenty-five years for each subsequent time. Under § 924(c), the three counts produced 55 years of additional punishment for carrying a firearm.”

Let me see if I can break this down. Congress says that if a dealer carries a gun in connection with a drug crime he (or she) gets five years tacked on to his sentence. Okay. If he does it again he gets 25 years tacked on. Whoa.

But wait, Angelos hadn’t been charged before. So on his first charge he’s getting the penalty for “subsequent offenses?” That’s like parking by in a red zone a couple times, not getting a ticket and then you go out to your car only to find it seized by the city. See they have evidence of those other times, they just waited to tell you. And how are the guns found at his house with the search warrant related to the drug crime? Sorry, I don't mean to rant.

So, 55 years because Congress doesn’t want to let “activist judges” judge. A Congress so hungry for power they forgot about separating it.

Weldon Angelos doesn’t get to see his kids play soccer, get married, have his grandkids. . . . I know I know, you do the crime you pay the time, but in a civil society the time and crime match up.

Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. This is the same Congress that just made it okay for the President to call anyone he wants an “enemy combatant” hold them without a charge, torture them, make fun of the music in their i-pod, pretty much anything.

At least Angelos has been told why he’s imprisoned, but it still doesn't make any sense. Not after the first six years anyway.