The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

1. December 9, 2004

Times Union
“Reform, New York-style”

Editorial

The Legislature softens the Rockefeller Drug Laws, but more needs to be done

It's wrong to apply the reform label to Tuesday's agreement between the Assembly and Senate on softening the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws. The more accurate description is partial reform. Partial -- as in the need for the Legislature to continue to address the issue next year.

Yet it would also be wrong to dismiss Tuesday's agreement as mere window dressing. "Don't minimize it, please, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, pleaded Tuesday. And he's right. Some major changes -- welcome changes -- were made to statutes that have ruined the lives of many first-time, non-violent offenders even as drug kingpins continue to roam free.

The changes include an end to life sentences for some offenders and reduced penalties for others. Other sentences are likely to be reduced under appeal, while repeat violent offenders will face longer prison time. It's estimated that some 400 inmates now serving long sentences could go free under the partial reform.

To qualify as genuine reform, however, the agreement would have had to include a return to judicial discretion in sentencing, replacing the mandatory minimums that now tie judges' hands even in cases where a miscarriage of justice is evident. And genuine reform would have also provided the option of treatment rather than jail for addicted drug offenders, as well as added funds to expand those treatment programs.

These are serious shortcomings, to be sure. But what was agreed upon was not exactly minimal progress, either. That is likely why some champions of Rockefeller Drug Law reform, especially Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, and newly elected Albany County District Attorney David Soares, hailed the agreement Tuesday. But neither is fully satisfied with it, either. They recognize that more must be done.

Mr. Aubry is being a realist when he describes Tuesday's agreement as an opportunity to move forward, but only that. The issue of genuine reform remains very much alive, he warns, and the issue "still plays in Senate races" and district attorney races. "The public," Mr. Aubry correctly notes, "still believes that reform and judicial discretion is important."

Fortunately, that message seems to have gotten through to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, and Sen. Bruno, who conceded Tuesday that despite the agreement more must be done on drug law reform.

As it happens, Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, D-Harlem, will give the leaders just such an opportunity to do more as he pledges to push for additional reform measures as soon as the Legislature returns in January. "What we're going to fight for is that the issue stays alive," Sen. Paterson vows. "It is my belief that our capacity to influence the situation is greater than before." The sooner that capacity is used to its maximum, the better.

2. December 9, 2004

Newsday
“Political considerations and drug law `reform'”

Joel Stashenko, Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The changes to the Rockefeller drug laws approved by the Legislature this week were similar to those on the table 18 months ago when hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons came close to brokering reforms of the mandatory drug-sentencing statutes.

In fact, proponents of reforming the drug laws probably could have had the legislation approved this week several years ago. Or something very much like it.

The measure's most dramatic changes concern the infamous A-1 and A-2 provisions that date back to 1973 and the near-hysteria former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller felt at the burgeoning heroin trade in the state's inner cities. Offenders in those categories face prison sentences of up to life for possessing and selling relatively small amounts of narcotics, even without accompanying convictions for violent crimes.

For many years, if not decades, no one in Albany has seriously disputed that a maximum life sentence for drug possession is not excessive. Killers, rapists, sex offenders and career criminals all routinely receive shorter potential terms in prison.

Plus, the harsh sentencing statutes never seemed to appreciably hamper the trafficking or use of drugs or the distribution of new and beguilingly addictive substances that have appeared since Rockefeller left office in 1974.

For years, reform advocates have tried to hold out for sweeping changes in other mandatory drug sentencing categories. That's what the debate over Rockefeller drug laws has really been about.

In particular, the Class B felony of the sentencing laws and the sentence of four-and-a-half to nine years in prison that nonviolent offenders must serve has been the real target of reform proponents.

There are perhaps 400 prison inmates serving time under the A-1 part of the Rockefeller drug laws. They will now be allowed to ask courts to shorten their sentences under new drug sentencing guidelines.

There are as many as 9,000 inmates sentenced under the Class B felony provision of the mandatory sentencing law. The changes approved this week will scale back the minimum sentence for nonviolent, Class B offenders to about three years from the current four-and-a-half years _ a modest alteration that many reformers said was almost worse than not getting any changes at all.

And the pro-prosecutorial forces on the other side of the drug law debate in Albany "won" in this week's legislation in the sense that judges were not given the near-total sentencing discretion reformers have sought for decades in drug cases. In addition, no felony offenders were given the ability to avoid prison altogether for automatic diversion into treatment.

Nevertheless, state Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, a Brooklyn Democrat with 36 years in the Assembly, called the legislation a "great compromise."

"As we know, around here change does not come easily," Lentol said.

Robert Gangi of the pro-reform state Correctional Association said the agreement was little different from the one Simmons tried to get Gov. George Pataki and state legislative leaders to agree to during their usual closed-door bargaining session in Pataki's office at the state Capitol in 2003.

Simmons, the force behind Def Jam music, left that meeting thinking a deal was done. But any accord fell apart within hours and nothing came of the negotiations in 2003.

Gangi questioned the political timing of the agreement reached this week and whether a better deal could have been made by reformers.

Pro-reform forces made much of this fall's defeat of Paul Clyne, Albany County's adamantly pro-drug law district attorney, by pro-reform opponent David Soares in a race in which Soares made Rockefeller reform a centerpiece issue. Reform forces also felt they knocked their drug law opponents in the Republican-controlled state Senate on their heels when Democrats took three or four GOP seats in the chamber during the Nov. 2 elections.

"The calculation was made, `Let's grab this small step forward while we can, even though the political landscape looks like it is shifting in our direction,"' Gangi said. "`Who knows what happens down the road? There could be all sorts of ways that the political landscape shifts against reform or appeal."'

Legislative leaders and Pataki said they'd keep talking about further changes. But supporters of more drug law reforms said they were worried that the first steps taken this week would persuade state leaders they don't have to make good on those promises.

Former federal Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, a close ally of Simmons in the drug reform fight, said it is too late for legislators in Albany to use this week's "half-a-loaf" reform bill as political cover.

"This is their attempt to alleviate the pressure. It's not going to work," Cuomo said. "The pressure is for Rockefeller reform and that's not what this is. This is not judicial (sentencing) discretion. This is not significantly reducing the burdensome length of punishment. ... This is simply not what we've been working for all these years."

Joel Stashenko is Capitol Editor for The Associated Press. He can be reached at P.O. Box 7165, Capitol Station, Albany, N.Y., 12224.

Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press

3. December 9, 2004

Newsday Opinion
“DOING TIME - Drug laws are still too harsh”

Robert Gangi is the executive director of the Correctional Association of New York.

Real reform remains elusive as prosecutors still have the power to stack the decks against the small fry

Despite the fanfare, the Rockefeller Drug Law modifications approved this week in Albany do not amount to real reform. The amendments reduce sentences for drug offenses but leave intact the harshest aspects of these statutes and don't address the most serious problems caused by these laws.

The mandatory sentencing provisions remain on the books, meaning that judges still cannot consider significant mitigating factors - such as an individual's role in the drug transaction or history of addiction - and fashion appropriate penalties to suit the offenses before them.

Mandatory sentencing schemes like the Rockefeller Drug Laws do not eliminate discretion; they remove it from the judge's hands and place it in the prosecutor's offices. Under the new system - as under the old one - the district attorneys will maintain power to control the

outcome of drug cases, and the old imbalance associated with the drug laws will persist. The deck will still be stacked.

Prison terms, especially for the highest categories of drug offenses, remain excessive. For example, under the new system, instead of 15 years to life, the most serious provision of the drug laws carries a sentence of eight to 20 years - still far too long.

Many other drug offenders, most of whom have no history of violent or predatory behavior, will still be incarcerated for inordinate periods of time, and New York's taxpayers will still foot the bill. It costs the state hundreds of millions of dollars annually to lock up people

convicted of minor drug crimes.

The main criterion for guilt remains the amount of drugs in a person's possession, not the person's actual role in the drug transaction. Drug kingpins are rarely foolish enough to carry narcotics; they employ other people, often in dire economic circumstances, who agree to do

it. Couriers are the ones who get caught literally holding the bag and face long prison sentences. As a main weapon in the "war on drugs," this statute will continue to result in law enforcement agencies concentrating on minor offenders - mainly from poor communities of

color - who are most easily arrested, prosecuted and penalized, rather than on middle- and high-level criminals who are the drug trade's true masterminds.

Another problem is that the legislature did not include any additional resources for drug treatment and other alternatives to incarceration. Drug treatment is a well-documented success. Fully funded rehabilitation programs not only cost less than imprisonment, they are

also much more effective in helping individuals recover from addiction and in reducing the crime associated with the drug trade.

The prevailing wisdom is that Albany was finally willing to move on this issue because of political considerations: an insurgent candidate who ran on a platform promoting drug-law repeal recently defeated the sitting district attorney in Albany County, representing the first

time any elected official has been voted from office because of his support for the drug laws. The Republicans in the State Senate – often seen, fairly or not, as obstacles to meaningful change - lost three seats in November, with another hanging in the balance. All observers

assume, rightly or wrongly, that New York's next governor will be the progressive Democrat Eliot Spitzer, who will most probably be a strong proponent of real reform. Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno likely saw an advantage in supporting this measure: He could at least claim that he and his colleagues took some action.

So, the concerns here are not only substantive; they are also political. If this legislation turns out to be the first small step on the path toward meaningful reform, then it will have been a positive measure. If, in fact, these modifications wind up undercutting the momentum for real change that has been building, then it will be viewed mostly in a negative light. The final history on this issue has yet to be written, and all of us will help shape the ultimate outcome.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

4. December 9, 2004

Newsday Opinion
“THEY CALL THIS REFORM?”

Albany leaves itself more work to do after tweaking outdated drug laws

Given the history of paralysis in Albany, the impulse is to cheer anytime the legislature rouses itself into action, including this week when it approved changes in the antiquated Rockefeller drug laws.

Give credit where credit is due: Ratcheting back the worst excesses in sentences for drug crimes is progress. But reform it's not. Albany danced around the margin, leaving the hard heart of the wasteful Rockefeller drug laws intact.

Even after Gov. George Pataki signs this week's changes into law, prison will still be mandatory for non-violent drug offenders. Judges will still have no authority to sentence anyone to drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration and almost no discretion to tailor

appropriate punishments for individual offenders and circumstances.

Albany has much to do before it can lay claim to real reform.

Obstructionists will insist that it's mission accomplished after this week's action, a position that should not be allowed to blunt the momentum for further change.

The state's inflexible grid of mandatory drug sentences may have appeared to make sense 30 years ago when the state and fearful citizens were in the grip of an epidemic of drug abuse and violent crime. Since then it has become clear that drug treatment is less costly than long-term imprisonment and often more effective in moving non-violent drug abusers away from a life of crime, which protects the public.

The legislature responded to at least a portion of that reality this week. It voted to shorten mandatory sentences for drug crimes, increase the weight of drugs needed to trigger the law's automatic penalties and to allow some inmates quicker entry into drug treatment

programs operated behind bars. The bill that both the Senate and Assembly approved will also allow about 400 offenders doing the most time under the Rockefeller laws to apply for resentencing in line with the bill's reduced penalties.

Prison sentences will still be stiff: 8 to 20 years for the worst, first offenses, for instance, instead of the current 15 years to life. The legislature provided no new money for drug treatment. But it ensured that non-violent drug offenders will no longer face the

prospect of life behind bars.

Albany took a step this week toward more rational sentencing for drug crimes, and every journey begins with one step.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

5. December 9, 2004

The New York Times
“Changes Made to Drug Laws Don't Satisfy Advocates”

Leslie Eaton and Al Baker

By finally tackling New York State's three-decades-old drug sentencing laws - considered among the most severe in the nation - the State Legislature has raised a lot of hopes and plenty of questions among prisoners, their families, and their lawyers.

It has also raised fears among advocates for prison reform, who contend that the changes enacted to the Rockefeller drug laws on Tuesday are relatively modest, but may nevertheless reduce public pressure for a more comprehensive overhaul in the way New York treats

drug offenders.

Indeed, to some advocates, the new bill is not even half a loaf, but more like a heel of bread, which will leave many prisoners and their families with dashed hopes. "The important message to get out is that the laws are virtually as harsh as ever," said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group. For example, he noted, judges must still sentence drug offenders to prison, rather than to alternatives like drug treatment.

But if New York still has some of the longest mandatory drug sentences in the country, "I think they should be," said Senator Dale M. Volker, a Republican from western New York who was in office in 1973 when Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller pushed for laws to fight a growing heroin scourge.

Chauncey G. Parker, director of criminal justice services for the state, said that people arrested for felony level drug offenses have an average of three previous felony arrests and four prior misdemeanor arrests.

The new legislation, which Gov. George E. Pataki has pledged to sign, will reduce minimum sentences for drug offenses. For example, first-time offenders convicted of a Class A-1 drug felony, who under current law must receive a minimum sentence of 15 years to life in prison, would instead generally face terms of less than eight years.

In cases of drug possession, rather than sales, the new law also doubles the amount of heroin, cocaine and some narcotics that automatically turn cases into top-level felonies.

But the most heralded change will affect prisoners who were sentenced to especially long sentences, as much as 25 years behind bars, and will now be able to petition the courts to have their lengthy sentences reduced to the new, lower levels.

According to data from the New York State Department of Correctional Services, that change could affect 446 prisoners. That is only a sliver of the 15,600 felons imprisoned on drug charges.

So many families who were cheering the Legislature's efforts are now deeply disappointed, said Randy Credico, director of the Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice and an organizer of the group Mothers of the New York Disappeared. He is faced with calling many of the group's

members, he said, and tell them their children "are not coming home." One of those mothers is Cheri O'Donoghue, who said that her son, Ashley, 21, pleaded guilty to a lesser drug charge upstate to avoid a possible life term in prison under the old law; in March, he was sentenced to serve 7 to 21 years and is now in Clinton Correctional Facility near the Canadian border and far from his home in Manhattan.

He is not eligible for the new reduction program.

"If you are going to reform the laws after all this time, and they are so harsh to begin with, then why not really reform them and reform them in a way that makes sense for someone like Ashley's situation, which is a lot of people?" she asked. "He is young and he really wants

to come home and he is in shock."

Many families do not know whether their child or spouse or parent qualifies for the sentencing reduction program. But they hope. In the Bronx, Jane L. Gooden has been waiting more than seven years for her youngest son, Timothy Merritt, to be released from prison. She said he was living with friends upstate when drugs were found in the apartment where he was staying; according to court records, in 1997 he pleaded guilty to one count of criminal possession of a controlled substance in Columbia County. It is hard for her to travel to Ulster County to visit him at the Eastern Correctional Facility, said Ms. Gooden, who is 61. "I've been sick since he's been gone," she said, adding that her husband died recently. "So I lost one - but I'm gaining one."

Public defenders, who are likely to handle the vast majority of the resentencing efforts, are still trying to figure out how the process will work. While some cases will be straightforward, in others "a lot of advocacy will be involved," said Alfred A. O'Conner, a lawyer with the New York State Defenders Association. The Legislature promised the prisoners lawyers, but did not authorize any money for the effort, he noted. Still, he added, "it's a chore that we welcome."

Ronald L. Kuby, the defense lawyer who has a daily radio program on WABC with Curtis Sliwa, said that his phones had already started ringing with inquiries from clients, ex-clients and family members.

"They want to know how does this affect them, what can we do?" he said. "I assume my experience is being duplicated and replicated" in lawyers' offices across the state.

So far, he added, he does have one likely candidate, Roberto Oms, a Miami construction worker with no criminal record who came to New York with some friends who were drug dealers - and four kilos of heroin.

Indicted in 1999, he went to trial, arguing that he was "just along for the ride," Mr. Kuby said. The judge disagreed and sentenced him to 15 years to life. But the judge, Rosalind Richter, noted that she had adjourned the sentencing "a number of times to see if the Legislature had any willingness, along with the governor, to come to some thoughts about

reducing the mandatory sentences under what is known as the Rockefeller drug laws." And if they did so, she was willing to hear from Mr. Oms's lawyers, she said, according to a transcript Mr. Kuby supplied.

Many judges have long pressed for a change in the Rockefeller drug laws, including Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye of the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, who has been advocating for a rethinking of the laws since 1999. "We do feel it is a major step forward," said Jonathan Lippman, chief administrative judge of the courts. But, he added, "We hope they continue to look at the whole issue of the Rockefeller drug laws."

Some defense lawyers wish the new law had gone further, but prefer to focus on the hundreds of people who could be freed soon, or at least sooner. One is Lisa Schreibersdorf, executive director of Brooklyn Defender Services, who said she had one client in his 60's who has already spent 19 years in prison. "Instead of having his old age in jail," she said, "he's got a chance to come home."

6. December 8, 2004

Albany Times Union
“Drug law deal raises debate Even as state lawmakers tout Assembly, Senate's passage of bill to ease harsh Rockefeller-era penalties, some say it doesn't go far enough”

Elizabeth Benjamin

ALBANY -- Depending on who you talked to Tuesday, state lawmakers either broke a long-standing logjam and took real steps to reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws, or merely tinkered with the harsh laws and frittered away any chance of future negotiations. "We are doing something here that changes people's lives; don't minimize it, please," said Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick.

"It would be an unbelievable stretch to call this Rockefeller Drug Law reform," said Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan. "Everybody is going to say: Oh, congratulations, we did this big reform, and now we can forget about it for years." Backed up by Gov. George Pataki,

legislative leaders touted their deal Tuesday to reduce some of the mandatory sentences in the 1973 laws, which require lengthy terms or life in prison for people convicted of possessing or selling relatively small amounts of drugs. The bill passed both houses the

same day it was printed, thanks to a message of necessity from Pataki that lets legislators circumvent the required three-day "aging" process. The governor said he will sign the bill when he receives it.

The measure ends life sentences for the highest-level, Class A1 and A2, drug offenders, slightly reduces sentences for nonviolent lower-level, Class B, offenders, and increases sentences for offenders with prior felony convictions. It also doubles the weight of drugs an

offender must possess or intend to sell to trigger prison sentences.

In addition, Class A1 felons now in prison could retroactively appeal their sentences under the new sentencing structure. Lawmakers estimated the provision could set free some 400 inmates serving long sentences. Class A2 and B felons could apply for "merit time" through

efforts like earning a GED or completing a drug treatment program to reduce their sentences. The bill does not return sentencing discretion to judges, which many advocates consider crucial. It also does not provide an option of treatment rather than incarceration for

addicted drug offenders or additional funding to expand treatment. Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, who has long championed drug law reform, called the bill a "first step." He acknowledged many things long sought by advocates and Assembly Democrats were missing, but insisted the Assembly majority could still revisit these issues. "The Senate wants to do it to put it to bed and die, and we want to do it to move it forward," Aubry said, before his house passed the bill, 96-41. "We're not anywhere different than where we

were, we've just taken off what we can agree on." "It still plays in Senate races," Aubry continued. "It still plays in (district attorney) races. The public still believes that reform and judicial discretion is important." The agreement, which lawmakers said was built on progress made in conference committees last spring, required compromise from all sides. Assembly Democrats gave up judicial discretion and additional treatment funding. Senate Republicans and Pataki agreed to some reduced time for Class B offenders and to drop "enhancements," such as increased penalties for offenders who sold drugs on the Internet or used a gun to commit crimes. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said "external forces" had

motivated the Senate to make a deal on drug law reform. Silver cited incumbent Albany County District Attorney Paul A. Clyne's defeat in the September Democratic primary to David Soares, who made drug law reform central to his campaign. Soares' win sent a chill through the state's district attorneys, who have been among the most vociferous opponents of drug law reform. Silver also mentioned the recent call for reform by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, an 85-year-old, eight-term incumbent and "dean" of the state district attorneys, who faces a primary challenge from a pro-reform candidate next fall. "I think the Senate found out that the tide had shifted on this issue, plain and simple," Silver said. The Senate Republicans are under additional pressure after losing three, and potentially

four, seats in their majority to the Democrats in the fall elections.

Asked whether the Senate's approval of the bill in a 53-6 vote was the result of political pressure, Bruno spokesman John McArdle said: "Absolutely not." All the no votes in the Senate were cast by Democrats who felt the bill didn't go far enough to change the drug

laws. "There is no more treatment in here," said Duane, speaking against the bill. "I can't believe, after all this time, this is what ends up on our desks." His comments were echoed by some longtime drug law reform advocates like Robert Gangi, executive director of the

Correctional Association of New York, a prison watchdog group, who called the bill "not worthy of the name reform," and said the process by which it passed was too secretive and too rushed. But Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul who had vigorously pushed for the changes, said he was "very, very happy," and credited pressure from the hip-hop community for raising awareness on the issue, according to The New York Times. Both Silver and Bruno conceded more needs to be done on drug law reform. Senate Minority Leader David Paterson, D-Harlem, pledged to start pushing for additional changes as soon as the Legislature returns in January. "What we're going to fight for is that this issue stays alive," he said. "It is my belief that our capacity to influence the situation is greater than before. So we're rolling the dice on this one."

7. December 8, 2004

The New York Times
“New York State Votes to Reduce Drug Sentences”

Michael Cooper

ALBANY, Dec. 7 - After years of false starts, state lawmakers voted Tuesday evening to reduce the steep mandatory prison sentences given to people convicted of drug crimes in New York State, sanctions considered among the most severe in the nation. The push to soften the so-called Rockefeller drug laws came after a nearly decade-long campaign to ease the drug penalties instituted in the 1970's that put some low-level first-time drug offenders behind bars for sentences ranging from 15 years to life.

Under the changes passed Tuesday, which Gov. George E. Pataki said he would sign, the sentence for those same offenders would be reduced to 8 to 20 years in prison. The law will allow more than 400 inmates serving lengthy prison terms on those top counts to apply to judges to get out of jail early.

The changes reflected a nationwide push in recent years to lessen some of the punishments for drug offenders, as states like Michigan and Pennsylvania have moved to emphasize drug treatment options or to give judges more discretion in sentencing those convicted of narcotics crimes.

The law's passage also represented a major achievement for a state legislature that studies have called the least efficient in the nation. Until now, state leaders have strived for years and without success to overhaul the drug laws, named for Nelson A. Rockefeller, who was governor when they were enacted.

The State Legislature also broke another logjam Tuesday when it passed a bill authorizing the expansion of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side of Manhattan so that New York City could compete with other cities for major conventions. As part of that deal, the Republican-led State Senate won a provision that $350 million would be spent on other projects outside of New York City, and the Democrat-controlled State Assembly ensured that the bill remained neutral on the question of whether to allow the New York Jets to build a football stadium on the site.

While some elected officials and drug policy advocates hailed the drug sentencing changes as a major step forward, others complained that they did not go far enough. They complained that inmates serving what they called unduly long prison terms for lesser crimes would not

be allowed to apply for early release, and that judges were not given the power to sentence some offenders to treatment programs rather than prison.

"This is it?" an exasperated State Senator Thomas Duane, a Manhattan Democrat, shouted during the debate. "This is it? After all this time, this is what comes to the floor? It would be an unbelievable stretch to call this Rockefeller drug reform."

But Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul who had vigorously pushed for the changes, said he was "very, very happy," and credited pressure from the hip-hop community for raising awareness on the issue.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver credited a changed political landscape - including the election of a new district attorney in Albany County, David Soares, who ran with the backing of the Working Families Party on a platform seeking drug-law changes - for bringing the state's leaders to a compromise. He said he would continue to push for more changes next year.

"It isn't everything we wanted, and I think we will continue to press for some of those things, but I think the climate has changed here," he said. In the mad scramble of late-session activity, though, several significant issues remained undone: how to comply with a court order requiring the state to fix New York City's schools, and how to overhaul a budget process that has yielded late budgets for 20 years in a row. Senator Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate Republican majority leader, backed away from a plan to override Governor Pataki's veto of the budget overhaul bill that the Legislature passed earlier this year.

Governor Pataki said the new drug law "reflects a greater knowledge than we had 30 years ago."

Senator Bruno urged his colleagues not to underestimate the importance of their vote to change the state's drug laws. "We are doing something here that changes people's lives," he said, citing the case of Elaine Bartlett, who served 16 years in prison for a single sale of cocaine, and whose story was chronicled this year in "Life on the Outside" by Jennifer Gonnerman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004). "And don't minimize it. Please don't minimize it."

Still, he said, "There is more to be done, and we're going to get there."

A study by the Democrats in the State Senate found that New York imposed the harshest penalties in the nation for low-level drug offenders. It found that 32 states, including Texas and Florida, offer probation to nonviolent offenders who sell small amounts of drugs, and that New York was the only state that required more than three years in prison for such offenses.

But year after year, talks to overhaul the laws have fallen apart.

To reach a compromise, the Senate and Governor Pataki gave up on their calls to increase penalties in some areas for drug kingpins, drug dealers who use children as couriers and drug dealers who use guns. The Assembly gave up its calls to give judges the discretion to

sentence offenders to treatment instead of prison, to allow more inmates to seek early release and to add more treatment options.

Assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry, a Queens Democrat who has led the Assembly's efforts to overhaul the drug laws for years, said: "We reached a point where you're going to do something this year or you're not. So, since nobody was willing to give on those other

issues, you boil it down to what you can concur on." But a number of drug policy advocates complained that even with the changes, the state's drug laws remained unduly harsh, and that the new law did not change the state's basic approach to fighting drugs, which they said has failed. Robert Gangi, the executive director of Correctional Association of New York, a prison monitoring group, said that the current system was still weighted in favor of prosecutors.

"What mandatory sentencing means is that judges no longer have the authority to make the threshold decision of whether someone should be incarcerated or not," he said. "We're supposed to have an adversarial system: the defense attorney on one side, the D.A. on the other side.

And the judge is the neutral arbiter who is supposed to weigh their claims. What mandatory sentencing does is stack the deck in favor of one side in the adversarial process, and that is the prosecutors." Mr. Gangi complained that after years of negotiations, and a brief

flirtation with public conference committees, the final agreement was reached behind closed doors, with interested parties unable to weigh in.

One district attorney who was happy to see the change was Mr. Soares, the incoming district attorney of Albany County, who upset an incumbent, Paul Clyne, in a race dominated by their debate on the drug laws. And on Monday, District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau of

Manhattan called for overhauling the laws.

Bertha Lewis, the co-chairwoman of the Working Families Party, which backed Mr. Soares's candidacy, said, "The incumbent D.A. paid a political price for his public opposition to reforming arcane and outdated laws, and clearly the State Legislature took notice."

Governor Pataki said that the deal struck Tuesday was largely the same as one that was early sealed in 2003 during a bizarre late-night negotiating session on the second floor of the capitol with the leaders of the Legislature and Mr. Simmons. (Assemblyman Aubry,

famously, was left outside the closed-door meeting.)

Mr. Simmons said that he was pleased something had finally happened. "I think it is a big win," he said. "Do I believe that there is more room? Yes is the answer. I think the people who fought, the kids who came out, the artists who worked hard, I think they will embrace it.

It shows their power. That they have a political might that can be used to benefit the state and the country."

Al Baker contributed reporting for this article.

8. December 8, 2004
Newsday

“Changes to law heralded, decried”

Curtis L. Taylor

It has been almost 11 years since Norma Arenas saw her son, Miguel, who is serving a 15 years-to-life sentence for his conviction under the Rockefeller drug laws.

But Arenas was in tears late yesterday after realizing that an agreement to change the tough drug laws, which were passed in 1973, could result in her son's early release.

"It has been 10 years that I don't see my son," Arenas, who suffers from a heart condition and other ailments, said in a phone interview from her South Bronx home. "I don't believe it ... I am so happy, I can't talk right now."

For Elaine Bartlett, who served 16 years after being convicted as a first-time offender for selling 4 ounces of cocaine, yesterday held a great deal of emotion.

While the compromise is too late to help her, she was "happy because it will prevent another family from going through what my family went through."

"I may have suffered while being incarcerated, but this is the beginning of breaking a cycle that will spare my community and other families my pain," said Bartlett, who was convicted at 26, leaving her relatives to raise her four young children.

Cheri O'Donoghue expressed anger and disappointment at the news. The proposed changes would not reduce the 7- to 21-year sentence her son, Ashley, 21, was serving for trying to sell 2.6 ounces of cocaine last year.

"I don't think it affects him at all," she said. "He was a first-time offender and I think the sentence was ridiculously high and inhumane. Not to say that what he did was right, but this law does not give the judges discretion and there is not a treatment option."

Bartlett, who was granted clemency in 2000 by Gov. George Pataki, and O'Donoghue joined other advocates yesterday in calling for total repeal of what they said are "draconian drug laws."

"Of course more needs to be done, but I told the governor when he got me off that clemency was only putting a Band-Aid on the problem," said Bartlett, 46, who has dedicated her life to overturning the laws.

Local activist Randy Credico, who started organizing the repeal effort seven years ago, said the legislature should have done more. The tentative agreement includes reducing the current 15-to-25-years-to-life maximum sentence to a sentence of 8 years to 20 years. It also includes eliminating the maximum term of life for the most serious offenses.

"After seven years, this is a small payoff," he said. "It is not reform, but it is a first step."

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, who led a rally against the laws at City Hall last year, said he was "very happy and proud" of the agreement.

"We wanted more, but it's as much as we could have realistically hoped for," Simmons said.

Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.

9. December 8, 2004
Newsday

“Westchester DA says revised drug laws must be backed with resources”

Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press Writer

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro applauded new restrictions on the state's Rockefeller-era drug sentences Wednesday but said more resources are needed to treat addicted criminals.

The state Legislature voted Tuesday to trim the most severe of the mandatory sentences that became law under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. For example, offenders who now have to serve at least 15 years would be eligible for parole in less than seven.

"We've got to be tough on the violent drug kingpins who are arrested with guns, who have a criminal enterprise," Pirro said. "That's where these laws should come into play, not for the individual who is addicted and is simply trying to support a habit that she or he can't control."

Pirro touted Westchester's programs that divert many small-time drug defendants into treatment rather than prison, but said compassion for drug addicts must be backed with more resources. Punishment, she said, is "only half the battle."

Addicted criminals "are valuable human beings who deserve treatment by a caring society as opposed to being warehoused in prison," she said.

Her office often arranges for a defendant to plead guilty to a felony and to get drug treatment before sentencing, she said.

"Upon completion of that program, we may drop those felony charges and they walk away with a clean record," Pirro said.

However, those opportunities may be limited. One rehabilitation center told Pirro that it had no beds available.

"We need to make sure that defendants don't get sent to prison just because there is no bed available for them," Pirro said. "If we are the caring society we say we are, we need to provide the help that these people deserve."

Pirro, a Republican who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for attorney general in 2006, did not elaborate on her political future.

"The last thing I'm focused on is 2006," she said, adding that she planned to be district attorney "as long as the people of Westchester County will have me."

Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press