Paul George Cassell (born June 5, 1959) is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Utah, who is currently the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. He is best known as an expert in, and proponent of, victims' rights.
Biography
Born in Orange, California in 1959, Cassell received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University in 1981. He later received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1984 and served as President of the Stanford Law Review. He was also a law clerk for Antonin Scalia, then a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, from 1984 to 1985. He was a law clerk for Chief Justice Warren E. Burger from 1985 to 1986. He was then an associate deputy attorney general in the United States Department of Justice from 1986 to 1988, and an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia from 1988 to 1991. He was a professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah from 1992 to 2002 and since 2007.
District court service
On September 4, 2001, Cassell was nominated by President George W. Bush to a seat on the United States District Court for the District of Utah vacated by David Sam. Cassell was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 13, 2002, and received his commission on May 15, 2002. While serving as a judge, Cassell wrote several opinions that received widespread attention, including the first detailed district court opinion to declare the federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional and a lengthy opinion decrying a fifty-five year mandatory minimum prison sentence he was compelled to impose for a low-level drug dealer, Weldon Angelos. Cassell later wrote a letter to President Obama requesting a sentence commutation, and thereafter prosecutors agreed to release Angelos. In December 2020, President Trump gave Angelos a full pardon, citing Cassell's opinion. In 2005, Chief Justice Rehnquist appointed Cassell to serve as the Chair of the federal Judicial Conference's Committee on Criminal Law. On November 5, 2007, Cassell resigned his judicial position to return to teaching at the S.J. Quinney College of Law.
Advocacy for the rights of crime victims
Cassell has been a leading spokesperson for protecting the rights of crime victims during the criminal justice process. Cassell was involved in supporting Utah's Crime Victims' Rights Amendment, which was passed in 1994. In 1996, Cassell represented victims and surviving family members of the Oklahoma City bombing in efforts to obtain access to court proceedings. In 2008, Cassell unsuccessfully appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, seeking crime victims' rights for Sue and Ken Antrobus, whose daughter was murdered in a massacre at the Trolley Square shopping center in Salt Lake City. The Tenth Circuit said that the issue was a "difficult" one, with one judge dissenting. Also in 2008, Cassell obtained a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that the rights of victims of 2005 BP oil refinery explosion in Texas City, Texas, were violated when prosecutors negotiated a plea bargain. In 2012, Cassell successfully appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, obtaining a ruling that lead to a district court decision that affected community members from pollution discharges by CITGO were "victims" under the Crime Victims' Rights Act. In 2014, Cassell argued on behalf of a child pornography victim ("Amy") before the United States Supreme Court, arguing that she should receive extensive restitution. In 2018, Cassell filed a petition on behalf of four "Jane Does" urging the Utah Supreme Court to appoint special prosecutors to pursue four rape cases. Cassell has testified before congressional committees several times, supporting an amendment to the United States Constitution protecting crime victims' rights. Recently, Cassell has advocated on behalf of Marsy's Laws in various states. Cassell is also a co-author of a law school casebook on crime victims' rights, Victims In Criminal Procedure.
Cassell is a proponent of capital punishment and has litigated for a victim's family in a death penalty case.
Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2 v. United States
Cassell was part of the legal team in a lawsuit against the United States by several alleged victims of registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, arguing that the government illegally concealed its non-prosecution agreement with Epstein from the victims in violation of their rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act.