Pubdate: Wed, 21 Nov 2001 Source: Albany Times Union (NY) Copyright: 2001 Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation Contact: http://www.timesunion.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/8 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws) SEIZE THE CHANCE The State Legislature Can Salvage A Lackluster Year By Finally Reforming The Rockefeller Drug Laws State government has few, if any, accomplishments to cite for this most unusual year in New York. The annual budget farce, for example, went on into September, leaving the governor and the Legislature with unfinished business that soon enough became part of an outright fiscal crisis. It would be tempting, then, to hope that the Legislature stays adjourned until January. It could return with the renewed seriousness of mission that state leaders profess to have developed since Sept. 11. Only lawmakers will be back in Albany late next month to finish the year's business. If they want 2001 to be remembered for something constructive after all, they could reform the Rockefeller Drug Laws. This was supposed to be the year, in case anyone cares to recall. Gov. George Pataki said back in January that the time had come to revoke these excessively harsh and unquestionably failed polices. The leaders of both the Assembly and the Senate, Democratic as well as Republican and liberal as well as conservative, agree. Those laws, passed out of a sense of desperation almost 30 years ago, have left New York's prisons full of nonviolent, low- and middle-level drug offenders serving lengthy and sometimes interminable sentences, and barely put a dent on the criminal drug dealing they were intended to stop. So many people have recognized the truth, including some of those actually involved in their initial passage, that the Rockefeller Drug Laws are still supported by only one constituency to speak of. They're the state's prosecutors. And the New York State District Attorneys Association is lobbying hard to stop drug law reform. The arguments are as familiar as they are tired. The district attorneys suggest, among other things, that these laws are what has curtailed violent crime in New York. They claim that changing the laws would remove the incentive to get drug offenders into treatment. But others know better, particularly Mr. Pataki, who said in his State of the State speech that "those laws are out of step with both the times and the complexities of drug addiction." What's missing is the essential role of judges. The Rockefeller laws all but eliminate discretion on the part of the arm of government that's supposed to apply the law. It should be up to judges, not prosecutors, to decide who can go into treatment rather than to prison. The more specific nature of a drug offender's prison term should be up to judges as well. The governor needs to speak out yet again. And he needs to resolve the differences between his plan for drug law reform and a bolder and further-reaching plan advocated by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D- Manhattan. It's the governor and the Legislature who should be making the laws, not the prosecutors. They should be content with enforcing them, and in this case, enforcing a more humane and effective version of the law. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth