Supreme Court Lets 55 Year Drug Sentence Stand (for pot)

[madmusic]

Supreme Court Lets 55 Year Drug Sentence Stand
By Jeralyn, Section Court Decisions
Posted on Mon Dec 04, 2006 at 12:19:52 PM EST
Tags: Weldon Angelos, mandatory minimums (all tags)

Even though the trial judge, a conservative, called the 55 year sentence of Weldon Angelos excessive, the Supreme Court let it stand today.

Angelos' crime? Carrying a handgun during three 8 oz. marijuana sales.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2006/12/4/131952/261

Would anyone else like to shoot down narius' comments?

This really pisses me off in a way that police brutality, child rape and BushCo pisses me off.

No justice.

[TahitiNut]

1. Mr. Angelos infringed on two monopolies.

The government has the monopoly on deadly force, with which they enforce the pharmaceutical industry monopoly on drugs - even those that grow free and are God-given.

[Union Thug]

2. It's become a hackneyed response, but I'll say it again...

marijuana needs to be legalized NOW.

How many good people are in prison for MJ related offenses. Shit, I don't even know anymore. Too many.

You guys know the rant, so I won't bother. But 55 years. Aint America great! We should be so proud that this is what it means to live in an ostensibly 'free' country.

[madmusic]

3. I wonder how many DUers have been alive for that long.

It's a long time.

[Union Thug]

4. These are the kinds of sentences that murderers and rapists get...

But POT? With or without a handgun in the pocket, the sentence is more criminal than the offense.

[WindRavenX]

5. Hell, some murders and rapes are out under 10 years

55 years? :wtf:

[Broken_Hero]

42. some in less than 7yrs...nt

[madmusic]

7. Mandatory laws, deference the the legislative branch...

Time to take a second look at that.

[JacksonWest]

36. Firearm Statutes are a....are something.

Drugs plus an illegal gun equals prison. This guy had priors. It's a flawed system, but it's not the pot. It's the gun.

[madmusic]

48. What priors?

I don't remember that. If he would have had only the gun, maybe a misdemeanor. So it's not the gun.

[uncle ray]

14. amazing isn't it?

in many states, possessing a legal handgun, while in possession of a misdemeanor amount of marijuana becomes an automatic felony.

:wtf:

what a wonderful country we live in.

[Pawel K]

23. Yeah, but get in a car drunk as a skunk

with a loaded handgun and off to the drunk tank you go for a night. This is an awesome country.

[Pushed To The Left]

6. Drug use should be treated as a health problem, not a criminal one!

I despise the "drug war" and the damage it does to people. Another thing that this case shows is how crucial it is to block right-wing Justices from the Courts! This country still has a LONG way to go...

[tritsofme]

8. The courts have no choice but to follow the mandatory minimums.

The SCOTUS has already held them to be constitutional.

The only method to change this is through Congress.

[Eric J in MN]

22. The Supreme Court could have struck down the sentence as

..."cruel and unusual" if it wanted to.

[praeclarus]

9. how many years did Fastow get?...

... Oh, yeah, it was 6.

So it is about 10 times less serious to steal
40M$ or so from taxpayers than to sell 8 oz of
grass. Now I get it.

[madmusic]

11. Talk about perspective...

That's 114,285 sales of pot for $350.

[johnaries]

10. Wait a minute. What was the 55 year sentence for?

Obviously, he was charged with muliple crimes. Sorry, but the OP makes it sound like he was charged with 55 years for possesion of pot, but obviously that is not the case.

Dude didn't just have pot, he also had a gun. What was he doing with a gun? What did he do with the gun that got police so pissed-off?

There's a lot more to this story.

I think pot should be legalized for multiple medicinal purposes, but if we go off half-cocked for red herrings, the anti-pot people are just going to use that against us.

Keep it real, people!

[madmusic]

12. Quote from the OP

"Carrying a handgun during three 8 oz. marijuana sales."

He never brandished it, never threatened anyone with it. What pissed them off was they he refused the plea bargain and went to trial. I posted a more detailed post a couple of weeks ago.

[Freddie Stubbs]

20. I guess he should have taken the plea bargain

[madmusic]

31. Yeah, right to trial...

We don't need no stinkin' right to trial.

[Freddie Stubbs]

55. He exercised that right

I'm sure he'll have plenty of time to reflect wheather exercising that right was the smartest move.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. Really? So barring "multiple medicinal purposes", you think it's okay that we spend $40 Billion a yr

on a "drug war" which is PRIMARILY against pot? (That's where the lion's share of the money goes)

Guess what? Al Capone's people carried guns, too. The answer to that was to END PROHIBITION. Not for "medical" reasons, for reasons that it's not any of the government's god-damn business if adults want to drink. And if it makes more sense for alcohol to be legal than it does to have prohibition against it, it sure as SHIT makes more sense for pot to be legal.

You want to keep it real? Okay- how about we stop fucking around, spending $40 billion a year (not including the costs of incarceration) trying to keep people like Willie Nelson and the late Carl Sagan from smoking pot. We've got federal tax dollars going to make sure Tommy Chong doesn't sell bongs on the internet. It is just beyond ludicrous, and its gone on way too long already.

The way to "keep it real" is to argue for sanity. Legalize, regulate, and tax it. Period. End of story.

[uncle ray]

15. what part of possessing a gun makes possessing pot a more serious offense?

did you follow the link to the story? it explains well that he DID NOTHING with the gun but possess it. the prosecutor even wanted a lesser sentence. this is about bullshit mandatory minimum laws. he had a gun in his possession in the first pot sale, that REQUIRED an additional 5 years in addition to the drug charge. the second time he had a gun while selling pot REQUIRED an additional 25 years on top of the previous charges! THERE is your "more to the story".

FUCK the anti-pot people. marijuana should be legal for any reason, medical or recreational, whether or not the person in possession of it happens to have a legal gun.

yeah, keep it real.

[Hubert Flottz]

16. I kept it real and punched the I word.

I smelt something foul.

[dapper]

21. I'm anti-pot

and you got a pretty strong opinion there. Although I have no opinion on the case, I feel slightly offended for being branded a $%^&.

Dapper

[uncle ray]

26. what did i brand you as?

[Warren DeMontague]

27. You realize that the lion's share of the $40 Billion a year drug war

(NOT including costs of incarceration, mind you) goes to fighting pot? Do you honestly think that's a worthwhile use of our tax dollars? Likewise, do you really believe that it makes sense to turn the 60 or so million otherwise law-abiding citizens who smoke pot and still manage to be productive members of our society into criminals?

Are you "anti-pot" because you don't smoke it and/or think smoking it is a bad thing? Hey, I don't smoke it, anymore, either. I also don't drink alcohol- alcohol nearly killed me in my youth, actually. But despite the fact that I *know* from personal experience and the experience of some very close to me just how dangerous alcohol can be, I think alcohol prohibition was a ludicrous, wasteful, fundamentally anti-freedom proposition that caused many more problems than it ever "solved".

And by any reasonable assessment, pot is a far less dangerous drug than alcohol. There is NO logically consistent reason why it shouldn't be legal, regulated, and taxed.

[dapper]

28. Don't Drink, Don't Smoke... What do you do...

-Stray Cats

I quit a few years ago. There are quite a few ways to view it. You can look at the Anti-smoking campaigns (Cigarettes) and a ton of money goes into those campaigns as well. Why legalize smoking dope when you are trying to convince people that smoking cigarettes is bad for you? It kind of negates the message. Plus, if you legalize pot, what's next? - Well, you legalized pot, why not legalize (enter drug name here)?

There are also enough drunks on the road---- yeah, I know, if they legalize it, everyone will suddenly be responsible.

Maybe it is also the people I know and places I've been but there's nothing like seeing some 40 year old guy, wearing a faded "Rolling Stones" shirt... ripped jeans, handing out in the corner of a building smoking it. Doesn't give me that squishy roll model feeling.

These are just my opinions, I'm not looking to change anyone elses opinion (that's why I originally made no comments on the drug issue) other people in this thread disagree and that's cool. it is a shame though that having a different opinion makes people say things like FUCK the anti-pot people


Dapper

[mtnester]

29. Ahem, that would be Adam Ant

I think...

:p

And I absolutely agree..the pot laws are draconian at best. It should be decriminalized immediately. Make it a 21 and over drug, just like alcohol.

[uncle ray]

30. well the anti-pot people are fucking us pot smokers over ever day.

if you support the jailing of people who did nothing more than hit a joint, well...

there are millions of pot smokers in this country now. how many traffic fatalities are there due to pot? why are WE not killing thousands of people on the roads like drunk drivers do?

you sure do have an opinionated non-opinion on the matter.:crazy:

[dapper]

39. opinionated opinion

I don't think someone should get 50 years for taking a hit of the bong but do believe offenses should be similar to drunk driving laws.

Dapper

[Warren DeMontague]

33. There's a big difference between public $ for ads against smoking cigs

and public $ to put people in JAIL for smoking pot.

Look at it this way- the $40 Billion a year for the drug war could go toward a LOT of fact-based anti-drug (and in that, I include nicotine and alcohol) education.. trouble is, when you LIE to kids and tell them that smoking pot is going to make them get date raped and/or cause their testicles to fall off, once they realize that's bullshit they kinda figure everything else the gummint tells them (about truly dangerous drugs, like meth) is bull, too.

It could also pay for a LOT of treatment on demand for all kinds of addictions, from alcohol on down.. And most people in recovery will tell you that treatment, not criminalization or jail time, is the solution most likely to help other addicts.

Smoking cigarettes IS bad for you (probably worse for you than smoking pot, according to the science) but that doesn't mean it should be against the law. In fact, comparing the two situations is ludicrous. In one instance, you have smokers complaining that they have to go outside of public places to light up. In the other, smokers face arrest and jail.

As for "Plus, if you legalize pot, what's next? - Well, you legalized pot, why not legalize (enter drug name here)?" Well, honestly, from my socially libertarian standpoint, I have a hard time justifying why it's ANY of the government's business what a consenting adult wants to do with his or her own body, bloodstream, and mind. (Driving under the influence is a red herring, by the way. In my mind, if you commit a crime while under the influence -and endangering others by getting behind the wheel is a crime- then THAT should be the crime. And it is. I had a friend killed by a drunk driver, I know the seriousness of the issue. But the idea that merely legalizing pot- in a country where some states have drive thru liquor stores- will somehow make the roads less safe is ludicrous.) As I said, from a purely philosophical standpoint, yeah, there could be a decent argument made for legalizing everything. But pot is clearly far less dangerous, not only than, say cocaine or heroin, it's also a helluva lot less dangerous -and socially deleterious- than alcohol. (You may not think the stoner in the corner is a good role model, but ask yourself which is more likely to start a fight or get violent- a mellow stoner, or a mean drunk?)

So realistically, I think that for hard drugs we should adopt a harm reduction strategy like the Netherlands has (where for some reason they don't have any higher rates of addiction to those substances than we do) while fully legalizing, regulating, and taxing pot.

I think the anger you see in threads like these comes from the fact that people are sick and tired of a relatively harmless habit/recreational activity like pot smoking being defined as a crime, and the fact that we spend way too much money on the drug war, and the fact that we have way too many non-violent offenders in prison, all the while, dudes in rolling stones shirts notwithstanding, millions of Americans (like the Late Carl Sagan) manage to smoke pot and still be productive citizens.

[dapper]

41. Smoke It up

(probably worse for you than smoking pot, according to the science)

Not true but open for conjecture (ie. No filter vs filtered) Of course, if your smoking a pack a day, the quantity of cigarette smoke would make it worse.

I drank, smoked, smoked pot, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's not like I haven't been there, I never had a problem with it (except for quitting smoking cigs, that was rough) For me, it's not something that I'm really interested in doing anymore but you guys feel free to smoke it up.

Dapper

[Warren DeMontague]

50. Maybe you missed it upthread- but I've been clean and sober for years, too.

:hippie: Doesn't change the fact that I think the war on drugs is a waste of time. If anything, these days I'm more convinced than ever that prohibition is futile.

[WindRavenX]

45. As adults, we decide what we do to our bodies

Not the government. Period.

You don't smoke, awesome. I should have the same right to determine what choice of benign herbs I inhale.

[dapper]

56. uh huh

Whatever...
If you have the right to determine which herbs you inhale, why don't you have the right to determine what medications you can take without a doctors prescription? Why do we need prescriptions? Gosh darn, that is hindering my civil liberties!

and while we are at it, we must have the right to determine whether we pay taxes or not?

Go do what you want with your body but do not expect everyone to have the same opinion as you. ...and if "you" (read: anyone) chooses to do drugs, don't expect anyone to have any sympathy for you if you get into an accident, do something stupid, don't get a job because you failed a drug test..etc -

Don't blame me for my opinion, maybe you can blame the laws on the people who do not take responsibility for their actions, the people who abuse drugs and put other people in danger. I've seen first hand what drugs can do.

Despite my opinion, i think the Traveling Wilbury's got it right when they sang "Everythings legal as long as you don't get caught".


Dapper

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

40. My opinion of anti-pot people...

is generally along the lines of $%^&.

:nopity:

[dapper]

57. well

#$%^ you too.

[Lochloosa]

17. Here is a little more info....4 AG's and 145 Prosecutors.....

Record producer Weldon Angelos received the minimum sentence under the law -- a harsher sentence than a child rapist or a terrorist who detonates a bomb aboard an aircraft would receive, according to his attorneys. The justices, without comment, left the prison term undisturbed.
Angelos was convicted of 16 counts of violating federal firearms, drug and money-laundering laws in 2003. The charges stemmed from his sale of three 8-ounce bags of marijuana to an undercover informant.
He had a gun but never brandished or used it. Nevertheless, the three counts of possession of a firearm in a drug transaction required the mandatory minimum sentence.
Four former attorneys general and 145 former prosecutors and judges wrote in support of a lighter sentence for Angelos.

[madmusic]

32. He had guns in his house...

That's why so many gun counts, even thought the sales did not take place in or at his house.

Like or hate pot, this is still bad law.

[JacksonWest]

37. I think pot should be legalized so we can get stoned out of our faces.

And the medical part. Hell, I'm getting too old to drink. Pot is much gentler on the body and the mind. It's less harmful then alcohol-it just less social. You get high every time you smoke. With booze, there is a social element.

[Jed Dilligan]

43. If you were doing a transaction with shady types

carrying several thousand dollars worth of cash value in merchandise, would you carry a gun or not?

And why should recreational pot use be kept illegal?

[indepat]

18. Don't have a clue as to street value of 24 ounces of marijuana, but $2 million cost of incarceration

is an economic luxury this near-bankrupt country can't afford.

[Union Thug]

24. self delete

[porphyrian]

19. There is no justice in mandatory minimum sentencing.

The judge hearing the case should set the sentence, not the legislature.

[tammywammy]

44. Exactly

I dont' agree with this sentence, and neither did the judge that handed it down originally.

Unfortunately I have to agree with SCOTUS on this one. They shouldn't have changed the sentence, it's up to the legislature to do it.

Maybe when the dems get in there in January they'll be able to change mandatory sentencing.

[WindRavenX]

46. what was the point of mandatory min. sentencing?

I just go :wtf: on it.

That and those asinine 3 strike laws.

[madmusic]

47. For the Left, the idea was fairness.

Consistent sentences that were fair and not arbitrary or subject to whims and opinions of parole boards. For the Right, it was consistent sentences, tough on crime sentences. The Right won that one. Sentences got consistently tuff.

[porphyrian]

58. It keeps too many people in prison.

That sounds simplistic, but that's exactly why mandatory minimums and 3 strike laws exist - they keep prisons overpopulated to justify the building of more prisons, which is a multi-million dollar industry, and, thanks to republicans everywhere (and a handful of Democrats, as well), prisons are being contracted out to private corporations, which sadly makes Riki-Oh prescient (a gloriously low-budget and violent kung fu movie based on a manga story where prisons are all private businesses). These privately-owned-and-operated prisons then use the prisoners as slave labor for other corporations, who still close down American factories, but hire the prisoners instead of desperate-to-work and without-worker-protection foreign labor, so it's in their better-profit interest to keep the prisons overflowing. In order to gain public support for this, they simply scare the shit out of them.

Florida is a good example, because it already has a built-in population of paranoid retired elderly with money that vote. The corporate media is asked/directed/paid-off to cover crime, which it is predisposed to cover anyway due to viewer preference studies, and suddenly Nana, who only leaves her condo to walk her mean-ass poodle and gets all her information about the outside world from TV and her tabloid of choice, is convinced that she is in constant, immediate danger from hidden villains lurking everywhere. She wrings her hands and worries about it at the Sunday shuffleboard tournament with all of her friends, who do the same (now that she's worried about it to them, if not before). Enough time passes to let the fear catch on. Then, someone steps up and claims they'll be "tough on crime" and fix everything if you vote for them. They'll lock 'em up and throw away the key, put the source of all of their distress (which Nana and friends believe to be the lurking invisible predator straw-man rather than the complicit media) in permanent exile. The law is passed, more people go to prison - at least enough to keep all of the prisons full of slave labor.

Prison is a business. As long as profit is put before humanity, we have a serious problem.

[High Plains]

25. With Democrats in control of the next Congress...

maybe, just maybe, we will see some action on these cruel and stupid sentencing laws. The crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity (5 grams of crack gets you a five-year mandatory minimum, while it takes 500 grams of powder to merit the same penalty) may be the first to see congressional action, but we need a broader review of mandatory minimum sentences and the federal sentencing guidelines, too.

Oh, and how about hearings on police violence--police killings, the use of no-knock warrants, the resort to SWAT team-style raids on routine warrants?

[thingfisher]

34. The laws against amrijuana need to be repealed.

Placing pot in the same caregory as heroin is not just stupid, but willfully ignorant. Millions of people smoke pot every day and its effects are negligable. Pot smokers come from all walks of life and social stata. The only reason it is illegal is that its value remains overinflated and the profits derived from it are comensurately higher. The drug war is a farce. Our government and many others are complicit in the world wide trafficking of drugs. Huge profits are being made .

We all know these things. When will some corageous public officials decide to bring some sanity to the pot question? My bet is never. Meanwhile, the merry go round of pot busts will continue ans billions of tax dollars go to keeping it revolving as infinitum. WE got to keep those law enforcement types busy somehow!

[madmusic]

38. Barney Frank for president

Just about all of his votes are right on...

http://www.ontheissues.org/MA/Barney_Frank.htm

[garybeck]

35. WTF? People get half that for murder.

:crazy:

[Hippo_Tron]

49. I was gonna say, people get 25 years for murder

55 for pot?

[THUNDER HANDS]

51. 8 oz is a LOT of pot

it's not like he got caught with a dime bag or something. Plus he had a gun.

I'd feel worse for the guy if he didn't have the gun. But I just don't like guns period. He shouldn't have had it on him. And if he felt he needed it for protection, he's in the wrong line of work.

[madmusic]

52. OK, but given all that, isn't 55 years still too much?

What do you think would be fair?

[THUNDER HANDS]

53. for a non-violent offense? yes.

It's too much. Maybe a year for the drugs and three for the gun. Four years max.

[madmusic]

54. That's still a pretty good chunk out of someone's life...

But he'd probably jump for joy at that sentence about now. It sounds a whole lot fairer.

The ivory tower scribes of these law likely have no concept of how long 55 years in prison is. To them, it's just a number on a piece of paper.