Season 1 Episode 4 – United States v. Angelos, federal mandatory minimums, and sentencing reform with Weldon Angelos and Paul Cassell
Description
In this episode, host Hannah Miller and co-host Erik Luna, executive director of the Academy for Justice at Arizona State University Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, speak with Weldon Angelos and former United States District Court Judge Paul Cassell. In 2004, Angelos was sentenced to a mandatory 55-year prison term for a low-level marijuana offense due to the mandatory application of stacked firearm sentencing terms. Cassell, who presided over Angelos’ case, authored a pathbreaking opinion, calling the de facto life sentence “cruel, unjust, and irrational.” After serving twelve years of his sentence, Angelos’ family, and others championing his case, secured an early release. Since then, Angelos has become an activist, working with public officials to end cannabis prohibition and reform the federal criminal justice system. Today, Cassell is a professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.
United States
