In July, Utah federal Judge Paul Cassell said the system of federal sentencing guidelines was unconstitutional.

In January, after the Supreme Court agreed with him, Cassell announced that he will continue to be directed by those guidelines in deciding when, and for how long, people will go to prison.

He was right both times. So was the Supreme Court.

Two decades ago, Congress correctly perceived a problem with the way federal judges were sentencing people to prison. Sentences meted out for similar crimes were too often not at all similar, depending on the jurisdiction, the judge and, it was reasonably feared, the race, wealth or connectedness of the accused.

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They Are Still Worthwhile Despite Top Court Decision, Cassell Says

In what appears an effort to show Congress that federal judges can be trusted with their newfound freedom in sentencing criminal defendants, one Utah jurist said Thursday he intends to continue using federal guidelines "in all but the most unusual cases."

U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell issued his opinion in response to a Wednesday U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the 17-year-old guideline system as unconstitutional and approved their use for advisory purposes only.

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A day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled judges are no longer required to follow federal sentencing guidelines, a jurist in Salt Lake City announced he will give "heavy weight" to the standards in determining punishment.

At a hearing Thursday, U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell said he will deviate from the range suggested in the guidelines only in unusual cases.

He then sentenced James Joseph Wilson, who had pleaded guilty to a 2003 armed robbery of a credit union, to 15 1/2 years behind bars, the low end of the range.

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2 Utah County Burglaries Point To Dangerous Trend

The apparent drug-related burglaries of two Utah grocery store pharmacies have put other area pharmacists on the alert.

During the Christmas holiday, two Utah County grocery store pharmacies, one in Lehi and one in Orem, were robbed of more than $20,000 in prescription narcotics.

Painkillers including Oxycontin, morphine, methadone and Lortab were taken from the Albertsons store at 760 E. Main, Lehi. Lehi Police Sgt. Jeff Swenson said it is likely the narcotics were stolen to sell on the street. Just how much the stolen drugs could generate remains unknown while the investigation continues, he said.

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Children's Centers Need More Funds, Sponsor Says

More young children are being exposed to dangerous drugs, being victimized by Internet predators and watching domestic violence unfold in their homes, which means Utah's Children's Justice Centers are straining under increased caseloads that are also reshaping their original mission.

Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, wants to provide some relief to the 15 centers by proposing a $200,000 incremental increase in funding and by officially "expanding" services to all children who have been victimized by a crime.

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With the many issues going on right now, the one that I am most interested in is the debate over medical marijuana.

Frankly I don't see why it is taking so long to come to a resolution. Whether it works as a medicine or not is not in discussion anymore; numerous studies have shown that it does.

The question now is: Why isn't it being legalized? Are we going to ignore the facts? We have a drug - like any other - that helps relieve symptoms, but that also has been shown useful as part of the treatment for AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, as well as others. Yet it is still not in the legal market.

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Does Utah need a meth czar? Absent that position, an often disparate group of government agencies, treatment providers and law enforcement officials take a piecemeal approach to solving Utah's methamphetamine scourge.

They're "white-knuckling" when it comes to cutting off both the seemingly endless supply of - and voracious demand for - the drug. The financial costs are tapping already squeezed budgets.

The social costs to those whose lives are shattered by the insidious crystal are immeasurable. "As the number of people addicted to this dangerous drug rises, so does the number of victims it creates," said Lana Taylor, Salt Lake County deputy district attorney who prosecutes meth cases. Every segment of the population is affected by drug addiction, either directly or by the property crimes and violence that occur as a result, Taylor said. "Most affected are the children of substance abusers.

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A federal judge in Utah said he reluctantly sentenced a small-time marijuana dealer to 55 years and one day in prison because of harsh mandatory minimums imposed by Congress that he said he couldn't avoid.

U.S. District Judge Paul G. Cassell of Salt Lake City sentenced Weldon Angelos, a 24-year-old first offender, to the lengthy term. Mr. Angelos was a successful music executive with two young children at the time of his arrest. His case has been highly publicized in recent months because of the harshness of the mandatory minimum sentence he faced.

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He Reluctantly Imposes a 55-Year Prison Term

A Utah federal judge on Tuesday reluctantly imposed a 55-year mandatory-minimum sentence on a first-time drug offender, but not before delivering a scathing rebuke on the sentencing laws that mandate the term.

"To sentence Mr. Angelos to prison for essentially the rest of his life is unjust, cruel and even irrational," U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell said.

That said, however, Cassell said he had no choice but to follow the statutes and sentence 25-year-old Weldon Angelos to prison for more than half a century. But in doing so, he called on President Bush to commute Angelos' sentence to one more in line with his crime. The judge suggested 18 years and asked Congress to revisit the mandatory-minimum laws that required the term.

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SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 16 - In a case that has spurred intense soul-searching in legal circles, a 25-year-old convicted drug dealer, who was arrested two years ago for selling small bags of marijuana to a police informant, was sentenced on Tuesday to 55 years in prison.

The judge who sentenced him, Paul G. Cassell of the United States District Court here, said that he pronounced the sentence "reluctantly" but that his hands were tied by a mandatory-minimum law that required the imposition of 55 years on Weldon H. Angelos because he had a gun during at least two of the drug transactions.

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He'll Give Talk on Trying to End the War on Drugs

The general leading the war against the "war on drugs" is in Utah, again spreading his message that it's time for this country to legalize what he mockingly calls the "forbidden fruit."

"Marijuana ultimately should be made legal," Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of Drug Policy Alliance, told the Deseret Morning News' editorial board Wednesday.

That's not to say Nadelmann, whose group is partially funded by anti-George W. Bush billionaire crusader/liberal philanthropist George Soros, envisions us living in a world where we could go to 7-Eleven and buy a 20-pack of joints or where doobie commercials air during the Super Bowl. Marijuana legalization would have its limits, including time-and-place matters that would be decided by local officials, if he got his way.

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Kids are going to see drugs. And more than half of them are going to use them.

As a result, there needs to be more than a "Just Say No" response, said Marsha Rosenbaum, a California drug policy reformer.

"This is for parents that have tried abstinence," Rosenbaum said. "Parents just want a fallback strategy, a Plan B, just in case [their children] don't listen."

Rosenbaum was in Salt Lake City this week as part of an ongoing series of training sessions by the Harm Reduction Project.

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It may be illegal but the popular "club drug" MDMA is coming back to its psychotherapeutic roots.

Sitting on a couch is Melissa, a woman in her mid-20s who has just taken 125 mg of methyllenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), or ecstasy, in a glass of juice. Sitting in a rocking chair to the left of Melissa is licensed psychotherapist Dr. Jane, who will work intensely with her patient over the next few hours, as Melissa's brain bathes in the surplus neurochemicals brought on by the MDMA.

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It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment in American history when we decided that justice was too important to be left to the judges. But it was a big mistake.

It was a mistake that is becoming more obvious to more people. One of them is a man with an office on Salt Lake City's Main Street, someone who not only has every reason to be worried about the issue, but also has the power to do something about it.

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Weldon H. Angelos, a 25-year-old producer of rap records, will be sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Salt Lake City for selling several hundred dollars in marijuana on each of three occasions, his first offences. He faces 63 years in prison.

Laws that set mandatory minimums sentences require 55 of the 63 years because Angelos carried a gun while he sold the drugs.

"It would appear effectively to be a life sentence," the judge, Paul G. Cassell of U. S. District Court there, wrote in a request to the prosecution and the defense for advice about whether he has any choice but to send the man to prison forever.

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Technique to Detect Drugs, Guns Violates Rights, Cases Contend

A man's home is his castle. To three Utahns, that means their sanctuary extends all the way to their doorknobs.

But they claim police are trespassing by wiping door handles with a cloth that collects traces of illegal drugs.

The men, in separate cases, are challenging the use of test results that allegedly revealed microscopic drug particles on their front doors - information officers used to bolster their requests for search warrants.

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With this nation embroiled in what threatens to be an interminable "War on Terrorism," an idea put forward last year by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has, for me, considerable appeal.

Kucinich, who was the one candidate in the Democratic primaries to unfailingly promote the party's traditional Franklin Roosevelt liberalism, proposed the establishment of a Department of Peace.

Now he has introduced in the House HR 2459, a bill that would establish a Peace Department, adding a new cabinet post to the executive branch of government. The Department of Peace would "advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all matters relating to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention of, amelioration of, and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict."

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You don't swat flies with 16-pound sledge hammers. The hammer might kill the fly, but it will also do a lot of damage to the furniture.

The so-called war on drugs involves similar overkill that needlessly, and expensively, puts people in prison for minor marijuana offenses. A big part of the problem is mandatory sentences, statutes designed to remove discretion from judges in an effort to show we're tough on drug dealers. Instead, we often end up sending low-level marijuana offenders to prison when a less expensive therapy program would be more appropriate.

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In the midst of the soaring rhetoric of the Democratic Convention, more than one speaker quoted Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address, invoking "the better angels of our nature."

Well, there is an especially appropriate task awaiting those heavenly creatures -- a long-overdue reform of our disastrous "war on drugs. "

We should begin by recognizing its costly and inhumane dimensions. Much of the nation, in one way or another, is victimized by this failure -- including, most notably, the innocents, whose exposure to drugs is greater than ever.

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The so-called war on drugs, while well-intentioned, has quite a few unintended consequences. One of them is keeping a useful source of fiber and oil off the market, at substantial loss to the American economy

We're talking about hemp. Because it is a relative of marijuana, it is lumped by law into the illegal drug category. It is against the law to grow it, although some products made from it can be imported from other countries.

There is a movement afoot to legalize industrial hemp, a movement that seems to be gaining momentum. Proponents trot out a laundry list of good reasons to legalize it.

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