Pubdate: Sat, 09 Dec 2006
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A18
Copyright: 2006 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Weldon+Angelos
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?245 (Clemency - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)

COMMUTE THIS SENTENCE

A Clemency Case Not Even President Bush Can Ignore -- or Can He?

THE SUPREME Court this week declined to review the case of Weldon 
Angelos, leaving in place his obscene sentence of 55 years in prison 
for small-time marijuana and gun charges. The high court's move is no 
surprise; the justices have tended to uphold draconian sentences 
against constitutional challenge. But it confronts President Bush 
with a question he will have to address: Is there any sentence so 
unfair that he would exert himself to correct it?

So far, Mr. Bush hasn't found one. He has commuted only two 
sentences, both of inmates who were about to be released anyway. Mr. 
Angelos, by contrast, is a young man and a first-time offender who is 
now likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. His crime? He 
sold $350 in marijuana to a government informant three times -- and 
carried, but did not display, a gun on two of those occasions. Police 
found other guns and pot at his house. The U.S. district judge who 
sentenced him in Utah, Paul G. Cassell, declared the mandatory 
sentence in this case "unjust, cruel, and even irrational." He noted 
that it is "far in excess of the sentence imposed for such serious 
crimes as aircraft hijacking, second degree murder, espionage, 
kidnapping, aggravated assault, and rape." And in an extraordinary 
act, he explicitly called on Mr. Bush to use his clemency powers to 
offer what he as a judge could not: justice. Judge Cassell 
recommended that Mr. Bush commute the sentence to 18 years, which he 
described as "the average sentence recommended by the jury that heard 
this case."

Mr. Bush put Judge Cassell on the bench. As a law professor before 
that, he was a staunch advocate of tough justice; his chief claim to 
fame, in fact, was having pressed the Supreme Court to overturn its 
landmark Miranda decision requiring police to read criminal suspects 
their constitutional rights. His exceptional discomfort with this 
case -- and his passionate plea for presidential mercy -- ought to 
carry weight even with a president so disinclined to use the powers 
the Constitution gives him to remedy injustices. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake