PATAKI DROPS THE BALL ON DRUG-LAW REFORM

In the final days of the legislative session, reform of the Rockefeller
Drug Laws has become a game of make-believe. Again and again, the governor
marches to the microphone proclaiming his commitment to "unprecedented" or
"comprehensive" reform - when it's plain to everyone, he doesn't believe
what he's saying. The governor issues the rules of this game, but the rules
are written by the New York State District Attorneys Association.

Here's how the game works: The governor strongly endorses "real" reform,
but introduces a bill that embraces the status quo. The governor says he
will give judges authority to send a drug offender to treatment instead of
prison - provided the prosecutor agrees.

The governor states that he is acting in good faith, when he has broken
faith with the thousands of families that are being destroyed by the
state's harsh mandatory sentencing scheme for drug offenders.

With very few exceptions, the governor's so-called reform bill, introduced
June 11, leaves in place a rigid schedule of excessive sentences for drug
offenders. The judge, in effect, remains a bystander in the courtroom.

Although the governor's bill lowers the 15-year-to-life sentences for the
top drug offenses (a small minority of offenders is incarcerated for these
crimes), it includes provisions that may well increase both the number of
persons incarcerated as well the length of sentences served - even for
lower-level nonviolent drug offenses.

The Pataki bill creates new determinate, or fixed, sentences for all drug
offenses. It would also impose severe determinate sentences on nonviolent
offenders under a "three strikes" provision. A new "drug kingpin" crime is
so broadly defined that even a first offender with only a minor role in a
drug transaction could now face a mandatory sentence of up to 14 years.

Treatment, instead of incarceration, is a key component of drug-law reform.
But the governor's bill would make many, if not most, drug offenders
ineligible for treatment if they had a prior conviction - even for a
misdemeanor.

In short, Pataki's bill gives prosecutors new statutory tools by which drug
offenders can be coerced into accepting a plea that puts them in prison for
a long time.

There is now a near-unanimous consensus among the state's legislative
leaders and policymakers that the Rockefeller Drug Law's sentencing
requirements are inefficient and wasteful. There is also irrefutable
evidence that these laws are enforced in a way that makes a mockery of the
constitutional principle of equal protection - that each of us must be
judged under the same legal standard.

The majority of people who sell and use drugs are white; but more than 90
percent of drug offenders in New York prisons are black or Latino. Why the
disparity? As a senior narcotics police officer once put it: "There is as
much cocaine in the Stock Exchange as there is in the black community.But
those guys are harder to catch ... he guy standing on the corner, he's
almost got a sign on his back. These guys are just arrestable."

The governor repeatedly promised - most prominently in his State of the
State address - meaningful reform of our drug laws and deserves some credit
for this. But the bill he's put on the table is not reform. Indeed, if that
bill became law not much would change, except for the campaign slogan of
the true reformers: "Repeal the Pataki Drug Laws."