United States v. Angelos

First-time offender Angelos (defendant) was convicted of marijuana dealing and three firearms-possession counts; while his drug sentence would have been about 78 months, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)'s mandatory stacked penalties for the firearms counts alone added 55 years, producing a total sentence of roughly 61.5 years for a 24-year-old first offender, far exceeding sentences for crimes like aircraft hijacking or second-degree murder. The court considered whether this sentence violated constitutional limits on Congress's sentencing authority.