REVISED NEW YORK DRUG LAW FREED KINGPINS, STUDY SAYS

The city's special prosecutor for narcotics criticized the revisions
in the Rockefeller drug laws yesterday, saying they benefited major
drug traffickers more than the low-level offenders they were supposed to help.

A year and a half after the State Legislature revised the drug laws
in an effort to reduce harsh prison sentences for low-level
offenders, a study by the prosecutor, Bridget G. Brennan, examined 84
drug offenders prosecuted by her office who have asked for
resentencing since the laws were changed in 2004. The offenders had
been convicted of possessing or selling enough hard drugs to make
them eligible for sentences of at least 15 years to life.

The study found that judges granted lower sentences to 65 of those
prisoners, and 22 of them, or about 34 percent, were either what she
called "kingpins," leaders of international drug organizations, or
"major traffickers," that is, leaders of local drug operations that
moved large quantities of narcotics.

Of the kingpins and major traffickers, 16 were granted relief from
lifetime parole, and four of them have been released, she said.

Ms. Brennan said her experience contradicted the conventional wisdom
that the Rockefeller laws punished first-time, low-level offenders,
particularly women, more harshly than the major traffickers who employed them.

"I think there was a misperception that the people serving these
sentences were low-level nonviolent offenders," she said in an
interview yesterday. "Or that they were unsophisticated naifs who
were caught up and manipulated by a drug organization."

The study looked only at those cases handled by her office, which
accounted for about a quarter of the prisoners released statewide
since the 2004 reforms. Advocates of the reforms said yesterday that
because the special prosecutor was charged with handling the most
serious cases, the study was somewhat skewed.

"That means three-quarters of the resentencing would have been
handled by local district attorneys, where, by definition, you would
have people who were involved less higher up on the food chain," said
Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of
New York, which has long lobbied for reforms in the drug laws enacted
in the administration of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Still, the study offers the first prosecutor's perspective of how the
reforms have played out at a time when legislators are still debating
whether they went too far or whether to relax the sentencing laws even further.

The Drug Law Reform Act, as it is called, was aimed only at the 446
offenders who were serving life sentences at the time the law was
passed in December 2004. Since then, according to Ms. Brennan's
report, 168 of those prisoners have been released statewide.

Mr. Gangi said he did not dispute that there were very few low-level
offenders caught up in the life-sentence provisions of the
Rockefeller laws. But, he said, there were roughly 14,500 other drug
offenders locked up for lesser terms at the time the reforms took
effect, and those prisoners did not benefit from the changes.
Advocates are still seeking changes that would help those offenders
- -- including outright repeal of the Rockefeller laws, which would
give discretion in sentencing back to judges and allow anyone
convicted under the old laws to apply for resentencing.

Ms. Brennan's report reflects an ongoing dispute between prosecutors
and advocates for reform over how much sentencing discretion should
be given to prosecutors, and how much to judges.

Ms. Brennan said yesterday that the reforms have swung the pendulum
too far back in the direction of judges. She said she favored a
"kingpin" provision that would require longer sentences for the
leaders of drug organizations and those who have committed violent offenses.

"It's not that I think the reform should be completely rolled back,"
she said, "but I think the public needs to be aware of who this
applied to. I just don't think it fits the stereotype a lot of people have."

Of the 84 prisoners who applied for resentencing, only one, Alan
Anderson, was a first-time, non-violent, low-level offender, the
report said. Mr. Anderson was accused of boarding a bus at the Port
Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan carrying a knapsack that
contained 4 3/4 ounces of cocaine, along with a small bag of cocaine
and some marijuana in his shoes. He was sentenced to 15 years to life
in May 1997. He was resentenced to eight years in February 2005, and
released the next month, after serving about eight years.

Ms. Brennan said that only 10 of the 446 most serious offenders in
prison in 2004 were women. Three of them were defendants prosecuted
by her office, the report said, and "none appear to fit the
description of the unsuspecting drug courier."

She said one defendant, Severina Jacquez, was convicted of criminal
drug possession and endangering a child after her 4-year-old child
was found alone in a locked room with 11 ounces of cocaine. Tests
showed that the child had swallowed some cocaine, Ms. Brennan said.