According to the Marijuana Policy Project, last week, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the mandatory 55-year prison sentence that a lower court imposed on a man who was convicted of carrying a handgun during three marijuana deals in Utah.

By refusing to hear the case, the U.S. Supreme Court ensured that 27-year-old Weldon Angelos will spend just about the rest of his life behind bars for selling three eight-ounce bags of marijuana to an undercover informant.

As his attorneys noted, the sentence he will serve is harsher than the sentence for raping a child — or the sentence for detonating a bomb aboard an aircraft.

Even the federal judge who was required to issue the mandatory minimum sentence called it “unjust, cruel, and even irrational.” Yet, the U.S. Supreme Court let the sentence stand without comment. You can read more about this abrogation of justice here.