PATAKI REFUSES TO GRANT HOLIDAY CLEMENCY

CRITICS CALL HIS BREAK FROM TRADITION 'SCROOGE-LIKE'

For the first time since taking office, Gov. George Pataki on Thursday
refused to grant clemency to any of the hundreds of prisoners who applied
for a show of Christmas season mercy.

"Executive clemency is an extraordinary step and after reviewing the
candidates this year the governor felt they did not meet the criteria,"
Pataki spokesman Patrick McCarthy said Thursday.

Critics assailed Pataki's decision as a stingy holiday gesture. In the past
three years the Republican governor has commuted the sentences of 13
prisoners, all but two of them sentenced under the state's stiff
Rockefeller Drug Laws.

"It's baffling. It's Scrooge-like," said Robert Gangi, executive director
of the Correctional Association of New York State.

The last year in which clemency was not granted was 1989 when then-Gov.
Mario Cuomo declined to act on any holiday appeals.

Some critics speculated that Pataki's tough-on-crime decision may have been
inspired out of political concerns as he builds his reputation for what
could be a bid for national office in 2000. Pataki has remained elusive on
whether he would seek a spot on a national ticket. But in recent weeks he
has said he may tour the country to counter harsh Republican policies which
hurt the GOP in the fall's elections.

Still others were hopeful that the lack of clemencies signaled that Pataki
was finally willing to look seriously at reworking the much-criticized
Rockefeller Drug Laws, which mandate 15-years-to-life in prison for
possessing 4 ounces or selling 2 ounces of a drug.

"I have to admit I'm stunned," said Deborah Small, legislative liaison for
Research and Policy Reform Inc. "But it also gives me hope that he's
willing to look at reforming the laws as a whole instead of after the fact
on a case-by-case basis."

Small's group, which has been lobbying for drug law changes, is launching a
series of radio advertisements opposing the 25-year-old Rockefeller Drug
Laws as draconian.

McCarthy would only say that the governor was looking at a host of criminal
justice issues for the coming legislative session.

Of the 108 convicts granted clemency by governors since 1980, 69 were drug
offenders sentenced under Rockefeller laws, according to state Division of
Parole statistics.

Many watching the process say that some of the same hard-luck cases had
come before the governor this year and were surprised he had turned a cold
shoulder.

"It comes as a real shock because it breaks with a tradition," Gangi said.

Clemency does not guarantee release from prison but it forces a parole
hearing. Parole board members almost always go along with the governor's
recommendation.