FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Tiffany Erickson, Public Relations Specialist 602.382.6190; [email protected] UTAH ATTORNEYS PETITION U.S. SUPREME COURT TO HEAR ‘CRUEL AND UNUSUAL’ MANDATORY SENTENCE CASE SALT LAKE CITY (October 30, 2006) A petition has been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court by Utah attorneys on behalf of Weldon Angelos who was sentenced to 55 years imprisonment for selling marijuana. In a rare show of support, an impressive list of 145 legal luminaries, mostly former federal judges and federal prosecutors, signed an amicus brief on Friday backing Angelos’s case. The group includes four former US Attorneys General (Griffin Bell, Benjamin Civiletti, Nicholas Katzenbach, and Janet Reno) and a former director of the FBI (William Sessions). In 2002, Angelos sold three 8-ounce bags of marijuana, worth a few hundred dollars each, to an informant working with law enforcement. The informant claimed that Angelos had possessed a gun during two of the transactions. Angelos, a first-time offender, was charged in federal court with offenses that triggered mandatory sentences. According to University of Utah law professor Erik Luna, a criminal justice expert and counsel of record in Angelos’s case, mandatory minimum sentencing has distorted the entire system. “To put it bluntly,” Luna said, “a first-time, low-level offender is treated as though he were the marijuana equivalent of Al Capone or Manuel Noriega. Yet ironically, not even these ruthless, violent, contraband-running criminals received the draconian sentence that was imposed on Weldon Angelos.” Luna and Jerome Mooney represented Mr. Angelos before the federal court of appeals. Mooney, a respected Utah criminal defense attorney, had represented Angelos at trial. Former Utah Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael D. Zimmerman, a partner with the law firm of Snell & Wilmer, and Troy Booher, an attorney with the firm, are also on the Angelos appellate team. Zimmerman says the Angelos case ignores the fundamentals of the justice system. “Mandatory minimum sentencing laws,” Zimmerman says, “which select specific crimes for draconian punishment out of any proportion to the rest of the criminal code, represent a fundamental corruption of the justice system.” Booher adds, “it is unconscionable that the Constitution could be held to provide protection for corporations by way of punitive damages and yet not provide any meaningful limits on draconian jail terms for individuals.” During its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to accept the petition filed by Luna, Mooney, Zimmerman, and Booher. About Snell & Wilmer L.L.P. Founded in 1938, Snell & Wilmer is a full-service business law firm with more than 400 attorneys practicing in six offices throughout the western United States, including Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona; Orange County, California; Denver, Colorado; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Salt Lake City, Utah. The firm represents more than 10,000 clients ranging from large, publicly traded corporations to small businesses, individuals and entrepreneurs. For more information, visit www.swlaw.com. # # # .