Legal Commentary

Time to Repeal Rockefeller Drug Laws

By TChris

The trumpeted 2004-05 "reforms" of New York's notoriously harsh Rockefeller drug laws did little to help the state's inmates who had been unfairly sentenced. Anthony Williams, for instance, is 17 years into a 25-to-life sentence. He can't get relief because his offense was too insignificant.

Ironically, he was too small a fish in the ocean of the illicit drug trade to benefit from what have since proven to be anemic legislative charades. Most of the drug offenders who were re-sentenced and released under those incremental "reforms" had convictions for the possession or the sale of large quantities of illegal narcotics. But treacherous, counterintuitive twists in the "reform legislation" actually made it impossible for many low-level offenders to get retroactive relief.

Low level offenders serving potential life sentences are exactly the population that sentencing reform measures should target. It's time for real reform, not window dressing. [more ...]

The conveyor-belt of criminal justice continues to transfer scores of helpless addicts and dime-bag desperadoes - almost exclusively poor people of color -- from their communities into the madness of the state prison system. Enough is enough.

It is beyond overdue for the Legislature and Governor to truly repeal the 36-year failed experiment in racism, injustice and government waste that the Rockefeller Drug Laws have foisted upon the people and taxpayers of New York. It is also time for these lawmakers to reconcile the chaotic discrepancies made in the specious photo-op revisions represented by the 2004-05 legislative "reforms."

New York's citizens favor repeal, even if the state's politicians have been too gutless to act. It's time to end the madness. Anthony Williams, and countless others like him, deserve to go home.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on November 21, 2008 (boomark / email).