LIFE TERM IN MARIJUANA CASE FUELS DEBATE ON SENTENCING

Weldon H. Angelos, a 25-year-old producer of rap records, will be
sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Salt Lake City for selling
several hundred dollars in marijuana on each of three occasions, his
first offences. He faces 63 years in prison.

Laws that set mandatory minimums sentences require 55 of the 63 years
because Angelos carried a gun while he sold the drugs.

"It would appear effectively to be a life sentence," the judge, Paul
G. Cassell of U. S. District Court there, wrote in a request to the
prosecution and the defense for advice about whether he has any choice
but to send the man to prison forever.

Cassell surveyed the maximum sentences for other federal crimes. Hijacking
an airplane: 25 years. Terrorist bombing intending to kill a bystander: 20
years. Second-degree murder: 14 years. Kidnapping: 13 years. Rape of a 10
year-old: 11 years.

He noted that Angelos would face a far shorter sentence in the courts
of any state. In Utah, prosecutors estimate that he would receive five
to seven years.

The Angelos case may provide a glimpse of the future. The
constitutionality of federal sentencing guidelines was called into
doubt by a Supreme Court decision in June, but that does not extend to
laws that set mandatory minimum sentences.

If the court strikes down the guidelines, as many expect, judges will
have much greater discretion, to the dismay of many prosecutors and
politicians who worry that judges are not tough enough on crime.
Congress may respond with even more mandatory minimums.