STATE'S ATTORNEY GENERAL PROPOSES SENTENCING REFORMS

Attorney General Wants To Keep Violent Felons Behind Bars Longer

Attorney General M. Jane Brady unveiled eight sentencing reform ideas
Thursday she said are designed to ensure the state's most violent felons
occupy its prison cells.

The initiatives range from increasing minimum sentences for violent felons
who possess firearms to lowering minimum sentences in some drug possession
cases.

"It targets the most violent and repetitive offenders," Brady said at her
office in Wilmington. "I think we should decide what the sentences should
be based on the risk people present to the public."

She said her plan coincides with a heightened public awareness of gun
violence in Delaware. There were 16 shootings in Wilmington in February,
according to city police. Last year nearly 70 percent of Wilmington
shooting victims had criminal records, police said.

Reform advocates said they liked proposals that would bring shorter prison
terms to low-level drug offenders.

But a less-warm reception was given to her plan to increase the minimum
sentence from one year to three years for people who illegally possess a
firearm after a prior violent felony conviction.

Brady also proposed raising the minimum sentence to five years for firearm
offenders who have two or more prior violent felony convictions.

Her other reform ideas would:

* Permit judges to sentence serious sex offenders to a lifetime of
probation in addition to prison.

* Decrease from 5 to 3 grams the heroin-possession weight needed to qualify
for a drug trafficking charge.

* Give judges discretion to suspend some or all mandatory sentences for
first-time offenders who possess small drug quantities.

* Reduce the minimum prison sentence from 15 to five years in some cases of
drug possession with intent to deliver.

* Force judges to impose home-confinement terms instead of prison for
people convicted of driving with a suspended license or driving after
judgment prohibited. Brady would exempt cases involving deaths, injuries or
intoxication.

* Authorize judges to order prison terms be served without good time or
early-release credits.

* Give the Department of Correction authority to decide what level of
probation supervision is appropriate for offenders without filing legal
papers and getting a court review.

Thomas P. Eichler, executive coordinator of Stand Up for What's Right and
Just, applauded Brady's proposals to bring shorter prison terms in
nonviolent, low-level drug dealing crimes. His Delaware group is seeking
reforms to the criminal justice system.

But Eichler said the group regrets Brady's decision to seek longer minimum
sentences for violent felons who possess firearms. The law already allows
judges to sentence those offenders up to a maximum of eight years.

"With the nationally acclaimed judiciary we have, why handcuff them in
situations like this? We just don't think that's good public policy,"
Eichler said.

Brady, a Republican, will seek re-election this fall. Former U.S. Attorney
Carl Schnee, who plans to challenge her, said Thursday he agrees in theory
that firearm offenses merit tough penalties and people with simple driving
offenses should not take up prison space.

Schnee said he had not yet seen Brady's written proposals, and his
reactions were based on a summary provided by a reporter. He questioned
whether some of the ideas are workable.

For example, giving serious sex offenders lifetime probation could add
considerably to Delaware probation officers' caseloads, he said.

"There's always a question of whether the state is willing to fund extra
expenses that could be associated with this," he said.

Sentencing reform has been gaining momentum nationally in recent years,
according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit
that promotes alternative sentencing ideas and decreased reliance on prisons.

Fiscal troubles, a national decrease in crime and solid alternative
sentencing models, such as drug courts that divert offenders to treatment,
have shifted national attitudes toward reform, said Marc Mauer, assistant
director of organization.

Four states revised their mandatory or truth-in-sentencing laws last year,
and seven others passed legislation to ease prison overcrowding, according
to a report Mauer co-authored last month.

"It doesn't seem as politically risky as it once was," he said of reform ideas.

Brady said her proposals were not conceived to ease continued prison
overcrowding, though they may free up some beds. Gander Hill prison, for
example, was 593 inmates over its 1,180 capacity Thursday, a prison
spokeswoman said.

Brady will announce the rest of her legislative package Monday. She said
she is talking with state lawmakers, searching for someone to sponsor her bills.