DISTRICT ATTORNEYS BACK CHANGES IN STRINGENT DRUG LAWS

ALBANY -- New York's district attorneys said Friday they would support
limited changes to the state's drug-sentencing laws.

In a letter to Gov. George Pataki and legislative leaders, the prosecutors
said there is consensus among their ranks for softening the harshest
category of the so-called Rockefeller drug laws.

The prosecutors said they also favor extending statewide the availability
of drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration for nonviolent
offenders. Diversion to treatment programs are available in the most
populous counties in the state.

"We have the opportunity to make genuine changes in critical areas right
now," said the president of the prosecutors' group, Steuben County District
Attorney John Tunney. "Do not allow proponents of radical overhaul of our
drug laws to hold these widely supported reforms hostage."

The support of prosecutors is considered important to any drug law reforms
favored by Pataki and the Republican-controlled state Senate. The Senate
this week ratified Pataki's plan.

The Democrat-dominated state Assembly wants to make more sweeping changes
than the governor and Senate do, and Assembly Democrats say prosecutors
should not be allowed to thwart meaningful reforms by getting veto power
over which inmates are sent into drug treatment.

Prosecutors said Friday they believe Pataki's plan goes further than it has
to. But they praised Pataki's criminal justice service coordinator Chauncey
Parker for soliciting their advice when drafting the governor's plan.

The district attorneys were derisive about many aspects of the Assembly
plan, saying it would gut all checks and balances in the law and allow most
drug offenders into treatment rather than prison --whether they should be
diverted or not.

The Assembly's approach "seems premised on the notion that, if diversion of
some drug offenders from prosecution to treatment is a good thing, then
diversion of all drug offenders must be even better," the district
attorneys said.

The district attorneys called the screening procedures for diversion to
treatment advanced by the Assembly "illusory" and predicted they "would
result in diversion of predatory dealers who are not addicts but
manipulators seeking only to avoid punishment."

Pataki spokesman Michael McKeon said the "district attorneys' strong
opposition to the Assembly plan based on their belief that it will threaten
public safety raises real questions as to whether that plan can pass even
in the Assembly itself."

Charles Carrier, a spokesman for state Assembly Democrats, did not have an
immediate comment on the district attorneys' analysis of the drug bills.

The prosecutors also argued that judges already have wide discretion over
sentencing drug offenders in all but the most serious category of the drug
laws -- the A-1 offenders, who face mandatory sentences of between 15 years
to life for convictions.

The district attorneys said they favor changing those sentencing laws, but
they noted that Class A-1 drug convictions are "exceedingly rare." There
were only 21 such convictions statewide last year, the prosecutors said.

They also noted that while the harshest penalty can be invoked for selling
as little as two ounces of heroin or cocaine, those amounts of drugs are
not "small." Two ounces of cocaine, when cut for street sales, will sell
for over $50,000 and supply 4,000 doses, the prosecutors said.

"The idea that state prison is full of hapless drug addicts is not simply a
myth, it's a lie," said Albany County District Attorney Paul Clyne.

Also Friday, the Bar Association of New York City wrote to Pataki that
while its position on drug law reform is closer to the Assembly, the
lawyers' group said the Pataki plan is also "an offer of true reform."

If the differences between Pataki and the Assembly cannot be reconciled,
the city bar association said the Legislature would improve state drug
policy by passing either bill.