LET JUDGES JUDGE

If Pataki is serious, New York can have significant (if not ideal) drug-law
reform this year.

In a rational world, there would be no mandatory prison time for
drug-addicted, nonviolent felons. Treatment would always be an option for
sentencing judges because it can salvage lives and reduce crime - and cost
taxpayers less to boot. But it is Albany where reform of the state's
Rockefeller drug laws is being debated, a place where reason doesn't always
rule.

Sadly, eliminating mandatory minimums and returning full discretion to
judges, where it belongs, isn't even on the table. But if Gov. George
Pataki is as flexible in negotiating incremental reform as he's indicated -
a big if - there is no reason that significant progress can't be made this
year toward more pragmatic drug sentencing. The 29-year-old Rockefeller
drug laws - named for the past governor who created them - impose stiff,
mandatory prison sentences for most drug felonies. Judges have little
leeway to fit punishment to individual circumstances and offenders.

One result is that, of the state's 67,000 prison inmates, 19,000 are doing
time for drug crimes. The overwhelming majority are black and Hispanic,
even though drug abuse is practically as prevalent among whites.

Under a Pataki proposal passed by the state Senate, prosecutors would
retain the power to decide who is sentenced to treatment. Judges could
overrule them, but only in very limited circumstances and only for
defendants who met strict conditions spelled out in the legislation.
Assembly Democrats would extend the treatment option to more people and
give judges greater authority to order treatment.

With an election looming and Pataki courting Hispanic voters, the governor
has signaled a new flexibility. He may now see the wisdom of reducing the
length of most mandatory sentences, giving judges greater power to overrule
prosecutors on treatment as an alternative to incarceration, and allowing
sentencing judges to retroactively reduce prison time for current inmates.
That's progress.

But for reform to be meaningful, the fine print has to ensure that the
balance of power in sentencing shifts significantly away from prosecutors
and toward judges. Anything less will give Pataki a nice campaign sound
bite, but do too little to change a wasteful policy.