New York State Votes to Reduce Drug Sentences

Michael Cooper, The New York Times

ALBANY, Dec. 7 — After years of false starts, state
lawmakers voted Tuesday evening to reduce the steep
mandatory prison sentences given to people convicted of
drug crimes in New York State, sanctions considered
among the most severe in the nation. The push to soften the so-called Rockefeller drug laws
came after a nearly decade-long campaign to ease the
drug penalties instituted in the 1970's that put some
low-level first-time drug offenders behind bars for
sentences ranging from 15 years to life.Under the changes passed Tuesday, which Gov. George E.
Pataki said he would sign, the sentence for those same
offenders would be reduced to 8 to 20 years in prison.
The law will allow more than 400 inmates serving
lengthy prison terms on those top counts to apply to
judges to get out of jail early.

The changes reflected a nationwide push in recent years
to lessen some of the punishments for drug offenders,
as states like Michigan and Pennsylvania have moved to
emphasize drug treatment options or to give judges more
discretion in sentencing those convicted of narcotics
crimes.

The law's passage also represented a major achievement
for a state legislature that studies have called the
least efficient in the nation. Until now, state leaders
have strived for years and without success to overhaul
the drug laws, named for Nelson A. Rockefeller, who was
governor when they were enacted.

The State Legislature also broke another logjam Tuesday
when it passed a bill authorizing the expansion of the
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side of
Manhattan so that New York City could compete with
other cities for major conventions.

As part of that deal, the Republican-led State Senate
won a provision that $350 million would be spent on
other projects outside of New York City, and the
Democrat-controlled State Assembly ensured that the
bill remained neutral on the question of whether to
allow the New York Jets to build a football stadium on
the site.

While some elected officials and drug policy advocates
hailed the drug sentencing changes as a major step
forward, others complained that they did not go far
enough. They complained that inmates serving what they
called unduly long prison terms for lesser crimes would
not be allowed to apply for early release, and that
judges were not given the power to sentence some
offenders to treatment programs rather than prison.

"This is it?" an exasperated State Senator Thomas
Duane, a Manhattan Democrat, shouted during the debate.
"This is it? After all this time, this is what comes to
the floor? It would be an unbelievable stretch to call
this Rockefeller drug reform."

But Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul who had
vigorously pushed for the changes, said he was "very,
very happy," and credited pressure from the hip-hop
community for raising awareness on the issue.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver credited a changed
political landscape — including the election of a new
district attorney in Albany County, David Soares, who
ran with the backing of the Working Families Party on a
platform seeking drug-law changes — for bringing the
state's leaders to a compromise. He said he would
continue to push for more changes next year.

"It isn't everything we wanted, and I think we will
continue to press for some of those things, but I think
the climate has changed here," he said.

In the mad scramble of late-session activity, though,
several significant issues remained undone: how to
comply with a court order requiring the state to fix
New York City's schools, and how to overhaul a budget
process that has yielded late budgets for 20 years in a
row. Senator Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate Republican
majority leader, backed away from a plan to override
Governor Pataki's veto of the budget overhaul bill that
the Legislature passed earlier this year.

Governor Pataki said the new drug law "reflects a
greater knowledge than we had 30 years ago."

Senator Bruno urged his colleagues not to underestimate
the importance of their vote to change the state's drug
laws.

"We are doing something here that changes people's
lives," he said, citing the case of Elaine Bartlett,
who served 16 years in prison for a single sale of
cocaine, and whose story was chronicled this year in
"Life on the Outside" by Jennifer Gonnerman (Farrar,
Straus & Giroux, 2004). "And don't minimize it. Please
don't minimize it."

Still, he said, "There is more to be done, and we're
going to get there."

A study by the Democrats in the State Senate found that
New York imposed the harshest penalties in the nation
for low-level drug offenders. It found that 32 states,
including Texas and Florida, offer probation to
nonviolent offenders who sell small amounts of drugs,
and that New York was the only state that required more
than three years in prison for such offenses.

But year after year, talks to overhaul the laws have
fallen apart.

To reach a compromise, the Senate and Governor Pataki
gave up on their calls to increase penalties in some
areas for drug kingpins, drug dealers who use children
as couriers and drug dealers who use guns. The Assembly
gave up its calls to give judges the discretion to
sentence offenders to treatment instead of prison, to
allow more inmates to seek early release and to add
more treatment options.

Assemblyman Jeffrion L. Aubry, a Queens Democrat who
has led the Assembly's efforts to overhaul the drug
laws for years, said: "We reached a point where you're
going to do something this year or you're not. So,
since nobody was willing to give on those other issues,
you boil it down to what you can concur on."

But a number of drug policy advocates complained that
even with the changes, the state's drug laws remained
unduly harsh, and that the new law did not change the
state's basic approach to fighting drugs, which they
said has failed. Robert Gangi, the executive director
of Correctional Association of New York, a prison
monitoring group, said that the current system was
still weighted in favor of prosecutors.

"What mandatory sentencing means is that judges no
longer have the authority to make the threshold
decision of whether someone should be incarcerated or
not," he said. "We're supposed to have an adversarial
system: the defense attorney on one side, the D.A. on
the other side. And the judge is the neutral arbiter
who is supposed to weigh their claims. What mandatory
sentencing does is stack the deck in favor of one side
in the adversarial process, and that is the
prosecutors."

Mr. Gangi complained that after years of negotiations,
and a brief flirtation with public conference
committees, the final agreement was reached behind
closed doors, with interested parties unable to weigh
in.

One district attorney who was happy to see the change
was Mr. Soares, the incoming district attorney of
Albany County, who upset an incumbent, Paul Clyne, in a
race dominated by their debate on the drug laws. And on
Monday, District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau of
Manhattan called for overhauling the laws.

Bertha Lewis, the co-chairwoman of the Working Families
Party, which backed Mr. Soares's candidacy, said, "The
incumbent D.A. paid a political price for his public
opposition to reforming arcane and outdated laws, and
clearly the State Legislature took notice."

Governor Pataki said that the deal struck Tuesday was
largely the same as one that was nearly sealed in 2003
during a bizarre late-night negotiating session on the
second floor of the Capitol with the leaders of the
Legislature and Mr. Simmons. (Assemblyman Aubry,
famously, was left outside the closed-door meeting.)

Mr. Simmons said that he was pleased something had
finally happened.

"I think it is a big win," he said. "Do I believe that
there is more room? Yes is the answer. I think the
people who fought, the kids who came out, the artists
who worked hard, I think they will embrace it. It shows
their power. That they have a political might that can
be used to benefit the state and the country."

[Al Baker contributed reporting for this article. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company.]