PATAKI: EASE 'ROCKEFELLER LAWS'

Albany - In a tough-on-crime era where the death penalty's popularity
thrives and parole is held in low regard, New York's Rockefeller-era drug
laws stand out as so stringent that even some of their original backers
have forsaken them.

In joining calls to ease these laws, Gov. George Pataki has all but
guaranteed the most critical examination yet of the state's 28-year-old
mandatory -and sometimes lengthy-prison terms, which are set automatically
by the quantity of drugs used or sold. The laws, among the harshest in the
country, have been blamed for flooding the state's prisons with nonviolent
drug users who were bit players in the drug trade.

"Today, we can conclude that however well-intentioned, key aspects of those
laws are out of step with both the times and the complexities of drug
addiction," Pataki said in his annual address to the Legislature, where he
promised to propose legislation that will "dramatically reform" those laws.

Currently, more than 21,000 state inmates-almost a third of the total-are
serving drug-related sentences; 617 are holding the most severe sentence of
15-years-to-life.

The goal of overhauling the laws has always been to exempt first-time
offenders and small-time street dealers caught with large amounts of drugs
from being sentenced to mandatory prison terms that Gov. Nelson Rockefeller
enacted in 1973 to punish career drug traffickers.

But several factors-including the absence of any details in Pataki's plan,
the opposition of prosecutors who credit the laws as a powerful tool for
law enforcement and the politics of Albany-make dramatic reforms Pataki
promised far from assured.

The state's district attorneys have been consistently opposed to a complete
overhaul of the laws to return sentencing discretion to judges.

"The wholesale revision would be something that we would be leery of. We've
achieved a lot of success in crime rate reduction due to vigorous
enforcement of drug laws," said Schenectady County District Attorney Robert
Carney, the president of the state District Attorneys Association.

Pataki has proposed loosening the state's drug sentences before, in 1999.
But his idea, to allow appellate judges to reduce sentences in special
cases, was viewed as "insignificant tweaking," said Robert Gangi, the
director of the Correctional Association of New York, a prison-reform group.

The Democratic Assembly rejected the proposal because Pataki linked it to
abolishing parole for all felons. Some observers said they suspect Pataki
may again try to tie it to some other item he wants from the Assembly.

Even if the proposal is considered on its own merits, it is unlikely Pataki
will back many of the things reform advocates want. These include allowing
trial judges to decide who should be spared prison sentences, and revising
the law to send most first- and second-time drug users to treatment programs.

But for the moment, both Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick) said they were receptive.
" If it's reform in the true sense of reform, it's something this house
will embrace," Silver said.

Even before Pataki's announcement, Albany observers had suspected the
Rockefeller drug laws would be an important subject of debate this year. As
Pataki spoke, the halls outside the Legislature were populated by an
interesting assortment of advocates of reform. They included relatives of
those in prison under the laws, and two celebrity activists: "Grandpa" Al
Lewis, a former Green Party candidate for governor better remembered for
his role in the 1960s television series "The Munsters," and retired New
York Police Det. Frank Serpico, whose efforts to end police corruption
inspired the Al Pacino film.

"If the governor means what he's saying today about serious reform, it is
about time," Serpico said.

Opponents of the Rockefeller drug laws also said they were heartened by
Pataki's comments. Deborah Small, public policy director at the nonprofit
Lindesmith Center Drug Policy Foundation in Manhattan, said: "It suggests
to us that he's serious about proposing something more substantive than he
has to date."