The story of Weldon Angelos speaks volumes about the unfairness of mandatory minimum sentencing.
Angelos was ensnared in an undercover marijuana purchase that reeked of entrapment. In 2003, more than a year after he had been arrested, Angelos was found guilty on several counts. Because of mandatory minimum statutes, the presiding judge—a Bush appointee named Paul Cassell—was left with no discretion at sentencing. After asking the prosecuting and defense attorneys to advise him on the constitutionality of the sentence, a distraught Cassell handed down a fifty-five-year term, a punishment he called “unjust, cruel and even irrational.” He urged then-President Bush to pardon the young father of three and right a clear judicial wrong.
Bush didn’t pardon him. Neither have you, President Obama