LAWS WITHOUT ORDER, JUSTICE WITHOUT MERCY

When it came time to churn out my last piece of propaganda, I had no
shortage of ideas. My first inclination was to go with something I had been
formulating on affirmative action, explaining how anyone against
affirmative action is racist, whether overtly or subconsciously. My man
Jerrel Wade recommended attempting to invoke the spirit of the late Ralph
Wiley, to try to dissect the racist undertones of the Pistons-Pacers brawl,
the suspensions and the resulting media commentary. But when I read a Nov.
17 New York Times article about a federal sentencing in Salt Lake City, my
choice was easy.

The Times story told of Weldon Angelos, a 25-year-old drug dealer,
sentenced by Judge Paul Cassell to 55 years for selling "small bags of
marijuana." Because, according to trial testimony, Angelos also carried a
pistol in an ankle holster while selling the marijuana, he was convicted of
three counts of brandishing a firearm while engaging in drug trafficking.
The first count carried a mandatory five-year term; the subsequent counts
each called for an additional 25 years. In "reluctantly" handing down the
sentence, Cassell found himself constrained by the mandatory federal
sentencing guidelines.

Perhaps you read this and find the punishment justified. Maybe you believe
a "purveyor of poison" like Angelos (which is how the assistant U.S.
attorney prosecuting the case described him) deserves to be put away for a
long time. But please take a minute to reconcile his sentence with that of
the man sentenced the same day as Angelos, who had been convicted of
aggravated second-degree murder for beating an elderly woman with a log. In
that murder case, Cassell was legally able to impose 22-year sentence.

The federal sentencing guidelines, established by the U.S. Sentencing
Commission and adopted by Congress, create a uniform system of punishment
for the federal criminal system. Proponents laud the uniformity in the
administration of punishment. Critics--among them judges--cite the
inflexibility to handle unique circumstances. I'll decry the crack-cocaine
discrepancy and the favorable treatment of white-collar crime under the
federal sentencing guidelines another day. While those inequalities are
racist, a casual observer may seek to justify them on grounds of inherent
violence. What happened to Angelos is unjustifiable. Small time drug
trafficking cannot compare with the taking of a life. Which begs the
question of what is to be done in the face of bad laws?

I ask because I don't know. Federal judges hold their offices so long as
they exhibit "good behavior," which translates to lifetime appointments.
But if Cassell had failed to sentence Angelos under the guidelines or
established a pattern of flaunting the guidelines to achieve reasonable
results, is that good behavior? Even had Cassell disregarded the mandate of
the guidelines in Angelos' case, more than likely his decision would have
been overturned at the circuit level.

In our current conservative era, which welcomes "judicial activism" like
syphilis at an orgy, courts, under the guidance of the U.S. Supreme Court,
constantly subject situations such as Angelos' to the same refrain:
legislators make the law; judges apply the law. Yet why should Angelos have
to wait for the legislature to fix a blatant error in judgment?

Is it not hypocritical for one to cherish the sanctity of life in
proclaiming a fetus as a human being, but force a human being to endure
overly brutal hardship because of a congressional faux pas, to leave him
resigned to praying Congress realizes its mistake? Are we so coarse of a
society that a person with the power to make the right decision,
particularly when an individual's life is in question, is left to follow
lock-step the mandates of our elected officials? How can life be so
valuable, and yet so worthless?

And I ask, if I were in Cassell's position, what would I do?