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The story can be summarized in a paragraph.

Four years ago, Angelos’ former girlfriend

informed federal agents that he was selling

drugs at an address in Salt Lake City. Through

an undercover agent, officers staged three

separate buys of marijuana, then obtained

a warrant for Angelos’ arrest. They seized

$�8,000 in cash and five handguns.

Indicted on four felony counts and two lesser

charges, Angelos declined the prosecutor’s

bargain offer of �5 years and out. When he

refused to plea, federal prosecutors piled

on �6 additional counts. Found guilty by a

jury, he was sentenced in November 2004 to

55 years and a day in a federal prison. This

past January a panel of the �0th U.S. Circuit

unanimously affirmed that sentence. He

filed his appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court

six weeks ago. If he is required to serve his

full term, he will be free soon after his 82nd

birthday.

The question he has asked the high court to

hear is not whether his punishment fits within

Chapter �8 of the U.S. Code. It fits. He asks

whether it fits within the Eighth Amendment:

Is it both cruel and unusual? More tellingly,

I would ask, is it just? District Judge Paul G.

Cassell, who presided over the jury trial, felt

strongly that the long prison term could not

be justified, but under federal sentencing

guidelines, he had no choice but to impose it.

In a written opinion, Judge Cassell

sympathetically identified Angelos as a

first offender, a successful music executive

with two young children. “To sentence him

to prison for the rest of his life is unjust,

cruel and even irrational.” A fair sentence,

he thought, would have been two years for

the firearm he carried and six years for the

marijuana. His post-trial poll of the jurors

found them a little tougher: They would have

sentenced Angelos to a median term of �5

years.

In an extensive appendix, the judge noted

that the sentence imposed on the defendant

for possessing the guns was longer than he

would have received for hijacking an airplane

or raping a �0-year-old child. The terrorist

who is convicted of detonating a bomb in

a public place and killing a bystander can

expect less than 20 years.

Judge Mary Beck Briscoe, writing for a

unanimous panel of the �0th Circuit, was

not impressed by Judge Cassell’s “cruel and

unusual” argument. She cited five Eighth

Amendment cases in the Supreme Court over

the past 26 years in which sentences have

been sustained of 40 years, 50 years or even

life for relatively petty cases of stealing or

dealing in drugs. Indeed, the Supreme Court

has reversed only two convictions under the

Eighth Amendment in the past hundred years.

Turning to Angelos himself, Judge Briscoe

exposed a different side: He was “a known

gang member who had long used and sold

illicit drugs, a mid-to-high drug dealer

who had purchased and in turn sold large

quantities of marijuana.” He had failed as a

musician. Presumably he was living off his

trade in drugs. That he had not been arrested

“appears to have been the result of good

fortune.”

Because I believe the draconian sentence

imposed upon a young first offender is wildly

unjustified, I hope the Supreme Court will

grant review. The court’s concern, I know,

is not with equity, but with law. The court

also values an appearance of stability, and

it spoke to the question of “disproportionate

sentences” in two relevant cases just three

years ago.

The two cases were Ewing v. California and

Lockyer v. Andrade , both decided 5-4 and

both involving serious repeat offenders. Gary

Ewing, for example, appears in the law books

as a truly incorrigible thief. In March 2000,

while on parole from a nine-year prison term,

he capped his career by stealing three golf

clubs. At last he was hit with a sentence of 25

years to life.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor spoke for a

badly fractured court in concluding that the

sentence was neither cruel nor unusual, i.e.,

it was “not grossly disproportionate.” Justices

Scalia and Thomas sputtered unhappily

in concurrence. The usual four dissented.

Since then Chief Justice Rehnquist has died

and Justice O’Connor has retired, so their

successors might want to hear an appeal

from a different defendant with a heap better

record. But don’t bet the ranch.

(Letters to Mr. Kilpatrick should be sent by

e-mail to kilpatjj@aol.com.)

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Lawful, Yes — But Just?[By James Kilpatrick]

The facts in the case of Weldon Angelos are not in dispute: He really did sell 24 ounces of marijuana to an informant, and he really did carry a handgun

when he did it.