STATE DISTRICT ATTORNEYS FEEL PRESSURE TO LIGHTEN SENTENCING

GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- An impending space crunch in North Carolina
prisons has many of the state's district attorneys feeling pressure to
lighten up on habitual criminals.

"We are getting pressures from legislators and the Department of
Corrections to lessen the number of people incarcerated," Pitt County
District Attorney Clark Everett said. "Pressures not to increase penalties,
not to increase prosecution."

As of last week, state prisons were operating at an average 111 percent of
there capacity, with 31,920 prisoners housed in facilities intended for
28,690. Individual prisons were operating at anywhere from 85 percent to
120 percent capacity, corrections department spokesman Keith Acree said.

"We move people around to make due," Acree said. "That's what we're
starting to do now. But we have sort of a gentleman's agreement with the
court that we won't exceed 130 percent overall."

Everett said he is concerned with the alternative being posed by those
faced with having to build new prisons during a state budget crisis: to
weaken the habitual felon law and bring parole back.

The North Carolina Sentencing Commission, an independent group of 30 law
enforcement, correction and judicial officials, is already reviewing all
sentencing policies, including the habitual felon statute.

To earn the legal definition of habitual felon, defendants must be
convicted four times. Violent offenders are labeled as habitual after three
convictions.

In combination with the 30-year-old habitual felon law, structured
sentencing policies which eliminate parole can take repeat offenders off
the streets up to 17 years longer.

Since structured sentencing went into effect in 1994, the number of
habitual felons in state prisons has jumped almost 200 percent -- from 183
in 1995 to 541 last year.

Three new prisons are scheduled for construction this year in Anson,
Scotland and Alexander counties, which will provide 3,000 new beds. But
budget proposals before the state General Assembly also call for the
closing of up to six prisons next year.

"They're doing it because the state needs to save money," said Ken
Honeycutt, district attorney for Union, Anson, Stanley and Richmond
counties. "I think they're fixing to trade off prisoners getting less time,
not because they are rehabilitated, but to save money.

"I'm mindful and aware that there is a finite number of beds in the prison
system, but I'm not going to hold back on prosecution," he said.

W. David McFadyen Jr., lead prosecutor for Craven County, said talk of
reworking the habitual felons laws in Raleigh is a case of history
repeating itself.

"When the economy makes a downturn, the first areas they start cutting back
on are law enforcement, courts and prisons," McFadyen said. "We're starting
to enter the same cycle as in the 80s: 'Oh, the budget's tight; we need to
start letting people out of prison or not put them in.' The public better
stand up and take notice, unless they want to let the crowd in Raleigh
start weakening the prisons."

During the 1980s, judges were sentencing more people to prison under the
Fair Sentencing Act, which did not include parole, said Ron Wright, a Wake
Forest Law School professor who has studied prison sentencing for the last
10 years.

"Meanwhile the state's population is going up, the number of convictions is
up and the state wasn't building prisons very much," Wright said.

Since the 1980s crunch, lawmakers have tried a number of methods in an
ongoing attempt to adjust for prison overcrowding. A prison population cap
was added, then repealed several years later. Parole came and went twice in
the last 20 years.

As for the most recent dilemma, district attorneys may be partly to blame
because of overuse of the habitual felon statute, Wright said.

"The district attorneys have it coming to them," he said. "They have
tripled its use it was originally intended to be sort of an exception. That
big increase has started to add up on them."

A resolution based on review of all of the state's sentencing policies, not
just the habitual felon law, is needed soon, Wright said. He points out
that in 1994, the sentencing commission's predictions for population growth
indicated the next major need for new prison construction would come in 2004.

"In prison building terms, 2004 is just around the corner," Wright said.
"At this point, you've got to decide: Are you going to build more prisons
or adjust things on the sentencing side and cut down on prison intake?"