RACIAL ISSUES RAISED IN BATTLE OVER DRUG LAWS

ALBANY - The battle over the state's tough, Rockefeller-era drug laws
turned nasty Monday, with reform advocates claiming that race has played an
issue in who is granted clemency each December by the Pataki administration.

With efforts to reform the laws still at an impasse, advocates have turned
their immediate lobbying effort to persuading Gov. George E. Pataki to
grant clemency to a few dozen inmates sentenced to long prison terms for
nonviolent, drug possession charges under the 1970s provisions. New York
governors traditionally grant clemency at the end of December.

But Randy Credico, one of the founders of Mothers of the New York
Disappeared, a family group whose members include parents trying to get
their children released from prison, accused Pataki of only granting
clemency to one black male during his eight years in office.

"Make your own extrapolation," Credico said when asked if he was accusing
Pataki of being racist. He said the Pataki administration's clemency
process has had "a racial overtone and undertone to it."

The Pataki administration lashed out at Credico, calling his comments
"disgraceful, shameful and wrong."

"He should be ashamed of himself for selling out the families to pursue his
own political agenda instead of working with the Senate and governor to
enact sensible reforms," said Pataki spokesman Joseph Conway.

Conway said dozens of families that Credico says he represents could have
seen children or spouses released from jail had a Pataki plan for reforming
the Rockefeller drug laws been approved.

Administration officials disputed Credico's claims that only one black male
has ever gotten clemency since Pataki took office in 1995. Of the 26
clemency requests Pataki has granted, three have gone to black males.
Another six went to black women and seven went to Latinos.

"The bottom line is decisions are based solely on the facts involved in
individual cases, not on the color of one's skin," Conway said.

Eighty percent of the state prison population is either black or Latino,
according to the state Department of Correctional Services. Of the 66,710
inmates, 33,653 are black, 19,865 are Latino, and 11,847 are white. The
agency could not provide a breakdown by males and females.

The Rockefeller drug law issue has divided Albany for several years now.
Pataki has made proposals to reform the law that has sent away thousands of
individuals for nonviolent, drug possession convictions, but his proposals
have fallen far short of what advocates and Democrats in the Assembly say
is necessary.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, criticized Pataki and Senate
Republicans for not coming to the negotiating table. With the state facing
a multibillion-dollar budget deficit, he added a new reason: He said the
Assembly's Rockefeller drug reform plan would save the state $160 million
per year, mostly in prison-related expenses.

With Credico at his side in a Capitol press room, Silver sought to stay
away from the race issue.

"I don't think anybody here called the governor a racist," Silver said.

But Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, D-Queens, who also came into the press room
along with family members of people convicted under Rockefeller drug laws,
said the drug issue "is all about race."

Aubry said the issue is not about controlling drug use in society.

"It has to do with who gets policed for using drugs in society," he said of
drug arrests that target minority neighborhoods.