Pubdate: Wed, 07 Sep 2005
Source: Stamford Advocate, The (CT)
Copyright: 2005 Southern Connecticut Newspaper, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1522
Author: Ellis Henican, Newsday, Inc
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws)

A GUNSLINGER, BUT NOT QUITE A STRAIGHT SHOT

Robert Morgenthau is against the death penalty. Always has been. Is today. 
In his 30 years as Manhattan district attorney, he has never sought to have 
anyone killed. Not once.

Leslie Crocker Snyder, the swaggering ex-judge who wants Morgenthau's job, 
has been a booster of capital punishment, although she rarely mentions the 
issue these days. Over the years, she hasn't just supported the death 
penalty. She's promoted it, relished in it. At times, she's seemed to enjoy 
the idea of putting criminals to death.

What other conclusion can we take from page 262 of her high-octane 
autobiography?

Convicted killer Terrell Martin was such a bad guy, she writes, "I would 
have been willing to give him the lethal injection myself."

Now, how's that for judicial temperament?

Sharpen the needles! Snyder has designs on Hogan Place!

This was not some hot-headed pundit mouthing off on TV. This was a New York 
State Supreme Court justice, discussing a defendant whose case she'd 
presided over.

Of course, public officials with a penchant for mouthing off rarely limit 
themselves to a single subject. Snyder's courtroom transcripts can read 
like Clint Eastwood monologues.

"I hope you suffer every day of your life," she told one defendant in a 
murder case. "Listening to both of you makes me sick," she told a pair of 
drug defendants.

But as the death-penalty debate has elbowed its way into the increasingly 
bitter DA's race, Snyder has been working strenuously to soften her image 
and disguise her zeal. She can read the polls as well as anyone. Manhattan 
voters, the polls say, abhor the practice of killing criminals, especially 
at a time of historically low street crime.

Out on the campaign trail now, Snyder has tried to avoid the issue 
entirely. When pressed, she concedes she's supported capital punishment, 
but "only for the worst kind of crimes." Oh, great, as if even the most 
extreme death-penalty supporters want to off jaywalkers and fare beaters.

Snyder also contends that the issue is irrelevant, now that the state Court 
of Appeals has overturned New York's latest death-penalty law.

But hold on a second, judge! That vote was 4 to 3, and one of the 
high-court judges in the narrow majority, George Bundy Smith, is retiring 
next September. A second anti-death judge, Albert Rosenblatt, leaves the 
top court three months after that. With the legislature still wobbly on the 
issue, and pro-death-penalty Gov. George Pataki still picking judges, how 
dead is the New York death penalty, really?

Death-penalty opponents have no doubt where Morgenthau stands on an issue 
they care deeply about. Snyder stands somewhere between "pro capital 
punishment" and "oh, it's not an issue any more."

There's a parallel to this in her sudden, recent pivot on Rockefeller 
drug-law reform. Across two decades on the bench, Snyder was legendary for 
her super-max sentences in narcotics cases. She named that autobiography, 
"25 Years to Life." She answered unhesitantly when one national television 
interviewer asked about the Rockefeller laws: "I've never had trouble with 
them."

But wait! She's running for DA in Manhattan. Disgust with the failures of 
New York's drug war and its wacky sentencing runs high in the borough.

So instead of the expected lock-'em-up-forever campaign, Snyder is 
portraying herself as a drug-law reformer, expressing outrage at the 
statutes that "have ruined so many lives and unfairly targeted 
African-Americans and Latinos."

Does she really believe that? Who knows!

"Is that the kind of person you want either as a judge or a DA?" Morgenthau 
was saying in an interview in his large and cluttered office adjacent to 
Manhattan Criminal Court.

"Talking about giving the needle herself" - or doing a politic about-face 
on the Rockefeller drug laws, he said, "It raises the whole question of 
temperament. When I meet with the hiring committee, I tell them I don't 
want any gunslingers. I want people committed to public service. I want 
people who can relate to victims and witnesses. Above all, who are fair and 
perceived to be fair.

"Ninety-five percent of the people in state prison are going to come out," 
said the city's longest-serving prosecutor, revving up for one last term. 
"You want them to feel they've been treated fairly. Apparently, she wants 
gunslingers in here. Her view and my view of who should be in the office 
are diametrically opposed."
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman