Pubdate: Sun, 25 Feb 2001
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2001 Chicago Tribune Company
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Author: Michael Hill, Associated Press

NEW YORK'S TOUGH DRUG LAWS COME UNDER FIRE

Even Law-And-Order Governor Dislikes Them

ALBION, N.Y. -- Denise Smith's children ask her the hardest 
questions. What is crack? Why are you in prison? And toughest of all: 
When are you coming home?

"You know, at 8 or 9 they really don't have a concept of time, so I 
tell them soon," she says, tears falling on her prison greens.

"They say, `You said that last time.'"

Smith, 40, is five years into a 10- to 20-year sentence for 
possession and sale of drugs.

She is among 21,000 inmates in prison under New York's Rockefeller 
drug laws, statutes so uncompromising that even tough-on-crime Gov. 
George Pataki wants to soften them.

The laws were first enacted in 1973 under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller at 
a time of fear over rising crime and heroin use. Among other things, 
the laws establish a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life for 
people dealing more than 2 ounces of drugs or possessing more than 4 
ounces.

The state District Attorneys Association has urged the governor and 
lawmakers to go slow as they consider undoing the Rockefeller laws. 
Some prosecutors contend the links between the drug trade and 
violence are strong and that putting away drug criminals makes the 
streets safer.

Critics say the Rockefeller sentences are too harsh, that they 
penalize addicts who would benefit more from drug treatment, and that 
they punish minorities disproportionately and break up black families.

Smith, who is black, lives behind the high fences and coiled barbed 
wire of Albion state prison in western New York's farm country.

She is a former crack addict who used to prostitute herself for drug 
money. She has three children, now 8, 9 and 20.

She has been productive behind bars, learning computer skills, 
working toward an associate's degree and helping coordinate a prison 
day care center for infants.

"Most people don't understand, but I've learned in the five years 
I've been down this time that the addiction is so cunning," she says. 
"It will tell you you're all right, but you're not."

Smith says she was in the midst of a sleepless, two-day drug binge 
when she took part in two sales to an undercover officer in 1996. 
Smith says she made no money on the deals and merely passed along two 
bags of crack worth $30 each as the drugs were transferred from the 
seller to the undercover buyer. That way she could grab some of the 
crack for herself.

Turning down a plea bargain, Smith went to trial and lost. It was her 
second felony drug offense. The minimum sentence for repeat offenders 
like Smith was 4 1/2 to 9 years.

The judge who sentenced her said it appeared that the only time Smith 
wasn't selling drugs was when she was behind bars. "You have no 
excuse not to realize the criminal nature of your conduct," Judge 
Paul Czajka said.

Peg Wright, her former drug counselor, believes Smith was wrongly 
treated as a drug dealer when she really was an addled crack addict. 
"She had no real grasp, like so many others, that crack cocaine 
couldn't be mastered," Wright says.

Pataki's plan would give judges the discretion to send non-violent 
convicts to rehab centers and would soften the stiffest mandatory 
sentences.

The plan would not apply retroactively for lower-level offenders like 
Smith, who could get out as early as 2004.

The future of the proposal is uncertain.

Law-and-order legislators are loath to soften punishments for serious 
drug offenses. Some Democratic lawmakers say the reforms need to go 
further.
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