Pubdate: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 Source: Newsday (NY) Copyright: 2002 Newsday Inc. Contact: http://www.newsday.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308 Author: Donna Lieberman and Robert Perry Note: Donna Lieberman is executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Robert Perry is its legislative counsel. PATAKI DROPS THE BALL ON DRUG-LAW REFORM In the final days of the legislative session, reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws has become a game of make-believe. Again and again, the governor marches to the microphone proclaiming his commitment to "unprecedented" or "comprehensive" reform - when it's plain to everyone, he doesn't believe what he's saying. The governor issues the rules of this game, but the rules are written by the New York State District Attorneys Association. Here's how the game works: The governor strongly endorses "real" reform, but introduces a bill that embraces the status quo. The governor says he will give judges authority to send a drug offender to treatment instead of prison - provided the prosecutor agrees. The governor states that he is acting in good faith, when he has broken faith with the thousands of families that are being destroyed by the state's harsh mandatory sentencing scheme for drug offenders. With very few exceptions, the governor's so-called reform bill, introduced June 11, leaves in place a rigid schedule of excessive sentences for drug offenders. The judge, in effect, remains a bystander in the courtroom. Although the governor's bill lowers the 15-year-to-life sentences for the top drug offenses (a small minority of offenders is incarcerated for these crimes), it includes provisions that may well increase both the number of persons incarcerated as well the length of sentences served - even for lower-level nonviolent drug offenses. The Pataki bill creates new determinate, or fixed, sentences for all drug offenses. It would also impose severe determinate sentences on nonviolent offenders under a "three strikes" provision. A new "drug kingpin" crime is so broadly defined that even a first offender with only a minor role in a drug transaction could now face a mandatory sentence of up to 14 years. Treatment, instead of incarceration, is a key component of drug-law reform. But the governor's bill would make many, if not most, drug offenders ineligible for treatment if they had a prior conviction - even for a misdemeanor. In short, Pataki's bill gives prosecutors new statutory tools by which drug offenders can be coerced into accepting a plea that puts them in prison for a long time. There is now a near-unanimous consensus among the state's legislative leaders and policymakers that the Rockefeller Drug Law's sentencing requirements are inefficient and wasteful. There is also irrefutable evidence that these laws are enforced in a way that makes a mockery of the constitutional principle of equal protection - that each of us must be judged under the same legal standard. The majority of people who sell and use drugs are white; but more than 90 percent of drug offenders in New York prisons are black or Latino. Why the disparity? As a senior narcotics police officer once put it: "There is as much cocaine in the Stock Exchange as there is in the black community.But those guys are harder to catch ... he guy standing on the corner, he's almost got a sign on his back. These guys are just arrestable." The governor repeatedly promised - most prominently in his State of the State address - meaningful reform of our drug laws and deserves some credit for this. But the bill he's put on the table is not reform. Indeed, if that bill became law not much would change, except for the campaign slogan of the true reformers: "Repeal the Pataki Drug Laws." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth