PATAKI PRESENTS PLAN TO EASE LAWS ON DRUGS

ALBANY, Jan. 17 -- Pledging to soften New York's harsh Rockefeller-era drug
laws, Gov. George E. Pataki today proposed shorter prison terms for many
nonviolent drug offenses, replacing mandatory imprisonment with treatment in
some cases, and giving judges greater discretion in sentencing.

For the most serious drug felonies, Mr. Pataki proposed reducing the
minimum, now 15 years to life, to a sentence of 8 1/3 years to life for
nonviolent criminals.

His plan would affect not only future cases, but also most people who are
already serving long prison terms under the most severe of the drug laws.
The governor would make about 500 inmates, out of the roughly 600 serving
sentences of 15 years to life or more, eligible for reduction of their
sentences. Inmates who had been convicted of violent crimes would not be
eligible.

Mr. Pataki said his plan "builds on the experience and reflects an
understanding of the experience we've had since the Rockefeller laws were
enacted a generation ago," including better insight into addiction and its
treatment.

The package falls well short of what critics of the current system have
called for, but it goes far beyond the Republican governor's only previous
plan to revamp the drug laws. Advocates of changing the drug laws, in the
Legislature and elsewhere, pronounced it a promising start for negotiations.

The newfound seriousness by Mr. Pataki and the Assembly speaker about
tackling the issue prompted those advocates to declare today that the
chances of overhauling the system were better this year than at any time
since the laws were enacted in the 1970's.

"The governor coming forward with a proposal like this, even though it does
not go as far as I would want to go, is a very, very positive step in
beginning real progress toward a bill we can enact," said Assemblyman
Jeffrion L. Aubry, a Queens Democrat and chairman of the Correction
Committee, whose own bill to change the Rockefeller laws has widespread
support in the Legislature. "I would say, as of today, the chances of doing
something about it this year are clearly better than at any time that any of
us can remember."

The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat who has promised to propose
his own revisions this year, said that he welcomed the governor's proposal,
but that it did not go far enough. Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican majority
leader of the State Senate, said he and Mr. Pataki "share a very similar
view on the issue."

For more than two decades, critics have charged that New York's drug laws
needlessly imprisoned low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, often with long
sentences that were out of proportion to their crimes. That view has been
particularly widespread in black and Hispanic communities, which account for
a majority of the people sentenced under the laws, but it has gained wider
currency in recent years.

Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House director of drug policy, has
criticized the New York laws as too strict, and President Clinton has said
the mandatory sentences in federal drug law should be reconsidered. Some
Republicans who took part in the passage of the New York laws have formed a
group, the Campaign for Effective Criminal Justice, dedicated to loosening
them. John R. Dunne, a former state senator who served as assistant attorney
general for civil rights under President George Bush, heads the group, and
its members include Warren M. Anderson, the former State Senate majority
leader.

Mr. Dunne called the governor's proposal today "a good, workable beginning,"
though he said it was still too punitive. "The important thing I think
happened today," he said, "is the governor stood up and said: `Come, follow
me. This is not soft on crime, this is smart on crime.' "

Since 1973, when many of the drug laws took effect, the state's prison
population has ballooned to more than 70,000 inmates from fewer than 13,000.
Since the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980's, more than 40 percent of the
people sent to state prisons have been sentenced for nonviolent drug
offenses.

Mr. Pataki called for revision of the most widely reviled of the drug laws
enacted under Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller in 1973, which imposes a mandatory
prison sentence of at least 15 years to life for possession of four ounces
or more of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine, or for sale of two ounces or
more. The law applies even to first-time offenders.

Mr. Pataki would lower the minimum sentences for those offenses, but only
for defendants with no history of violent crimes. Those with no other
criminal records would be sentenced at trial to at least 10 years to life
under the governor's plan, and he would let them appeal to the Appellate
Division of State Supreme Court to lower their sentences to 8 1/3 years to
life. Those with nonviolent previous convictions would face minimum
sentences of 12 years to life at trial, or 10 years to life on appeal.

A sentence of 10 years to life means an inmate would become eligible for
parole after 10 years in prison, but parole might not be granted until a
much longer time. An inmate's parole request is reviewed by the state parole
board once very year or two.

The governor's proposal would also allow nonviolent offenders already in
prison serving those long sentences to petition the Appellate Division for a
reduction.

And Mr. Pataki proposed giving judges the discretion, in some cases, to
bypass the state's mandatory prison terms for low- and mid-level drug
offenders in favor of drug treatment. Under current law, felony drug
offenders with previous convictions must go to prison. (First-time drug
offenders are not required to go to prison, and often do not.)

When sentencing second-time, nonviolent drug offenders for all but the most
serious crimes, the governor said, judges should have the choice of sending
them to residential drug treatment centers for six months or more, rather
than to prison for minimum terms as long as four years. In some cases, that
would require the prosecutor's consent.

Mr. Pataki acknowledged that the state would have to pay for a major
expansion of drug treatment centers to accommodate his plan. He did not
include any money for that purpose in his proposed 2001-2002 budget,
released on Tuesday, but he said the drug treatment would be paid for by
lower prison costs, predicting that his proposals would reduce the prison
population by more than 5,000.

The governor also proposed slight reductions in mandatory penalties for
repeat offenders, and slightly more latitude for judges in setting prison
sentences.

In six years as governor, Mr. Pataki has reinstated the death penalty,
increased penalties for a host of non-drug-related crimes, eliminated parole
for violent felons and established a statewide DNA database to identify
violent criminals. In the same period, crime has dropped sharply, though
there is considerable debate over who should win the credit for that.

The governor's unassailable tough-on-crime credentials give him greater
political leeway to soften the drug laws, a point he acknowledged obliquely.
"I think the fact that we have been so successful in reducing crime in this
state gives all of us the ability to take another look at these laws," he
said.

As a Republican, he also has the power to persuade reluctant Republicans in
the Legislature to go along.

Enacting the drug law changes could deprive State Comptroller H. Carl
McCall, a black Democrat who plans to run against Mr. Pataki next year, of
an issue that is particularly potent with minority voters.

It would join a long string of issues Mr. Pataki has seized on that were
often linked to Democrats -- from his environmental bond act in 1996 to his
gun control package last year -- and that made him popular with moderate
voters and even liberals.

Shortly after taking office in 1995, Mr. Pataki said he believed the
Rockefeller laws should be eased. In the annual ritual of governors'
granting clemency to a handful of prisoners at Christmas, Mr. Pataki has
focused on commuting the sentences of people serving long terms under the
drug laws.

But he did not make a proposal to change the laws until 1999. That bill was
dismissed by Democrats as fiddling with a few details, and the governor tied
it to the abolition of parole for all felons, which most Democrats opposed.
It died in the Democratic-controlled Assembly.