SALT LAKE CITY — Weldon Angelos is 11 years into a 55-year federal prison term for selling marijuana three times in Salt Lake City while having guns, though he never used them in the deals.

Under mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, the judge in his case had no choice but to impose what amounts to a lifetime behind bars.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, calls the sentence "plainly excessive" under any standard, and he's working to change the law.

"Since my time as a federal prosecutor, I have been concerned that federal sentencing laws too often require punishments that just don't fit the crime," he said.

Lee joined a bipartisan group of senators at a news conference Thursday in Washington, D.C., to unveil what they described as the biggest criminal justice reform in a generation.

With federal prison populations skyrocketing and about half of the nation's federal inmates serving time for drug offenses, senators said the proposal would better rehabilitate prisoners, reduce crime and save taxpayer dollars. It would allow police and prosecutors to use resources to more aggressively target violent criminals and repeat offenders, senators said.

The bill doesn't do away with mandatory minimum sentences but would give federal judges more discretion with those convicted of nonviolent drug crimes. Judges would have more flexibility to impose stiff sentences on the most serious drug lords and cartel bosses.

It also would expand opportunities for programs that are proven to help offenders not commit crimes after they're released, enabling them to become productive members of their communities.

"We believe that there are people who are incarcerated today for lengthy sentences at great expense who frankly should not be in those prisons," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who worked closely with Lee on the sentencing aspects of the bill.

In 2002, Angelos sold small amounts of marijuana to a confidential police informant three times. At one sale, he had a gun in his car and in another he had it strapped to his ankle. Police found another gun in a bag in his apartment.

Prosecutors deemed Angelos, a budding music producer and father of two boys who had no prior criminal convictions, to have possessed the guns "in furtherance" of his marijuana sales.

Federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws required him to serve five years for having a gun in a drug crime and 25 years each for the other two charges, to be served consecutively. There is no parole in the federal system, though there is time off for good behavior.

Now 36, Angelos is scheduled to be released in November 2051, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Related:

AP source: Senators reach deal on criminal justice overhaul

A bipartisan group of senators has reached a long-sought agreement on changes to the criminal justice system that would reduce prison sentences for certain non-violent drug offenders.

The legislation would be applied retroactively, meaning Angelos could petition the court to reconsider his sentence taking into account changes in the law. Had it been law when Angelos was convicted, he would have received about 10 years in prison, Lee said.

Mandatory minimums sentences aren't categorically problematic but are used too much, Lee said. The federal prison population has exploded 800 percent since 1980, partly due to excessive use of law, he said.

Mandatory minimum sentences were once seen as a strong deterrent to crime, Durbin said.

"In reality, they have too often been unfair, fiscally irresponsible and a threat to public safety," he said.

Senators described the legislation, three years in the making, as a true bipartisan compromise.

"There things in here that each of us like. There are items that each of us would rather do without," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

In Utah, state lawmakers earlier this year passed the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, which reduces penalties for certain drug crimes and offers prison inmates time cuts for completing education or treatment programs shown to reduce recidivism.

Like the proposed federal legislation, the initiative is designed to lower the rising prison population and help inmates not commit crimes after they get out. The new law took effect Thursday.

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