MR. CLYNE'S NEW BROOM

The DA makes prompt evidence testing a priority for Albany County drug cases

Albany County District Attorney Paul Clyne is making good on his campaign
pledge to improve the way the office disposes of felony cases. It is a
welcome, if overdue, initiative.

Mr. Clyne hopes to change the office's reputation for letting too much time
lapse in prosecuting drug and gun cases. In the past, the long delays have
allowed suspected felons to plead to lower charges or walk free because
evidence hadn't been analyzed within the time limits required by law. The
delays enabled many defense attorneys to win their cases on technicalities,
and the word has spread among suspects that they had a better chance of
going free if they played the system long enough that time would run out
for the prosecution.

But Mr. Clyne hopes to change that image, and reality, by asking the State
Police to test evidence in Albany County cases within 30 days of an arrest.
To do that, the State Police would have to give Albany County evidence a
priority at their testing lab. The request is more than reasonable, given
the county's poor record of pursuing criminal charges on a timely basis.

In a related move, the new district attorney has asked police departments
throughout the county to test guns within five days of an arrest to ensure
they are operable -- a condition necessary to make charges of weapons
possession hold up in court.

The fault doesn't lie with the State Police laboratory or the local police
departments. Making sure that evidence is assessed and tested on time is a
responsibility of the district attorney's office -- an obligation that Mr.
Clyne has now moved to the forefront.

Mr. Clyne rightly makes the connection between guns and drug crimes and
just as rightly concludes that if more drug suspects are sent away to
prison, rather than freed on technicalities, there is a good likelihood
that gun violence will also decline in the county.

But the public might well wonder why these praiseworthy initiatives were so
long in coming. Much of the blame, of course, has to rest with Mr. Clyne's
predecessor, Sol Greenberg. But others should have spoken out, too,
including fellow prosecutors and police officials.

Too often, when political leaders call for more gun control laws to stem
the tide of gun violence, opponents are quick to point out that what is
really needed is tougher prosecution of the gun laws already in effect.
What a shame that they could point to Albany County as an example that
proved their point for so long.