Brief (and compelling) weekend reading about mandatories
In this post, I criticized Utah US District Judge Paul Cassell’s decision in the Angelos mandatory minimum case for its summary Eighth Amendment analysis. In addition, I wonder if Judge Cassell considered whether Angelos arguably had a claim based in Due Process and/or the Sixth Amendment stemming from prosecutors’ apparent (and successful) efforts to penalize Weldon Angelos for initially seeking to exercise his constitutional right to a trial.
Consider this description from Judge Cassell’s Angelos opinion of exactly why Angelos ended up with a mandated 55-year sentence:
[T]he government told Mr. Angelos, through counsel, that if he pled guilty to the drug distribution count and the § 924(c) count, the government would agree to drop all other charges, not supersede the indictment with additional counts, and recommend a prison sentence of 15 years. The government made clear to Mr. Angelos that if he rejected the offer, the government would obtain a new superseding indictment adding several § 924(c) counts that could lead to Mr. Angelos facing more than 100 years of mandatory prison time. In short, Mr. Angelos faced the choice of accepting 15 years in prison or insisting on a trial by jury at the risk of a life sentence. [He] rejected the offer and decided to go to trial. The government then obtained two superseding indictments, eventually charging twenty total counts, including five § 924(c) counts which alone carried a potential minimum mandatory sentence of 105 years….
Perhaps recognizing the gravity of the situation, Mr. Angelos tried to reopen plea negotiations, offering to plea to one count of drug distribution, one § 924(c) count, and one money laundering count. The government refused his offer, and the case proceeded to trial.
Though perhaps the issue was not fully briefed, I think these facts make out at least a colorable claim that prosecutors violated Due Process and/or the Sixth Amendment by penalizing Weldon Angelos for initially seeking to exercise his constitutional right to a trial. I know these claims are at least arguable because I was recently sent a compelling brief from a Pennsylvania case in which exactly these claims are argued.
The case is US v. Hernandez, and the brief you can download below provides another moving example of the power and discretion that federal prosecutors possess due to long, mandatory sentencing provisions.