Justices urged to review Salt Lake case

Four former U.S. attorneys general and 141 other top former justice officials from across the United States are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case of a Salt Lake man sentenced to 55 years for selling marijuana.

The case of Weldon Angelos has become a rallying point by legal experts who say the high court is overdue in reviewing the constitutionality of minimum mandatory sentences in the federal system.

On Friday, a friend of the court brief, known as an amicus brief, was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, bearing signatures of support by former U.S. attorneys general Griffin Bell, Benjamin Civiletti, Nicholas Katzenbach and Janet Reno. The brief has also been signed by former FBI director William Sessions. Joining the group are more than 100 other former federal judges and federal prosecutors who assert that Angelos' 55-year sentence constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. They also argue that such laws take control away from sentencing judges.

A similar amicus brief was filed by essentially the same group when Angelos appealed his sentence before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Angelos, now 26, is an aspiring rap producer and father of two who was convicted of selling 8-ounce bags of marijuana to an undercover informant on three occasions. Because the informant had later testified that Angelos had a gun during two of the sales, a federal mandatory law kicked in, giving him a sentence that even sentencing judge, U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell, protested in a legal brief.

Angelos, who was sentenced in 2002, could be well over the age of 70 before he is eligible to be released.

The defense team for Angelos lauded Friday's complementing brief, saying it was "rare show of support" by opponents of minimum mandatory laws.

"There's a lot of support for it," said former chief justice for the Utah Supreme Court, Michael Zimmerman, whose law firm of Snell & Wilmer is donating attorney resources in Angelos' appeal.

Currently the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to hear the case.

"It is an unusual and extremely welcome action by a group of exceedingly well-respected former federal judges, federal prosecutors and high-ranking justice officials," said University of Utah law professor Erik Luna, who has been helping with the appeal for several years now. "These individuals come from all points on the political and legal spectrum. ... It is a statement that the federal criminal justice system has lost its moral compass as a result of the increasing tendency to promulgate and utilize mandatory minimum sentencing laws."

Federal prosecutors have argued that the sentence is fitting and follows the will of Congress in getting tough on people who deal drugs with firearms in their possession. Last January the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with federal prosecutors. In response to the argument that Angelos was a first-time offender, the appellate judges said that had more to do with luck than anything else.

Zimmerman said he anticipates they will know if the nation's top court will agree to hear the case by late November.

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E-mail: gfattah@desnews.com

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