Legal Commentary

Reforming the Rockefeller Laws

By TChris

Will New York's legislature finally do away with the obnoxious Rockefeller drug laws?

The Rockefeller laws tied the hands of judges by requiring lengthy prison terms even for first-time offenders. Essentially, the law allowed prosecutors to decide who went to jail and for how long. The system, which has been imitated throughout the country, filled the jails to bursting, while doing nothing to curb the drug trade. The law has been especially disastrous for black and Latino offenders, who represent the overwhelming majority of those held in state prison for drug offenses.

This editorial quotes with approval Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, who criticized a state commission that studied reform. The commission was loaded with prosecutors who, unsurprisingly, wanted to keep power in their own hands rather than returning sentencing discretion to judges.

Mr. Silver, who has favored reform for many years, described the panel’s report as “a missed opportunity” and signaled his intent to push for legislation that would eliminate mandatory sentencing for low-level, nonviolent drug crimes and expand judicial authority. Real reform “means untying the hands of our judiciary,” he noted, “and placing emphasis on probation, alternatives to incarceration and treatment.”

Exactly. Mandatory sentencing laws let prosecutors, not judges, decide who goes to prison. Too many minor offenders end up charged with a crime carrying a mandatory sentence simply because they won't rat out their friends. Judges are more inclined than prosecutors to believe that exercising the right to remain silent shouldn't carry a penalty.

Republicans have predictably blocked reform in the past. The editorial predicts that this is the year their efforts to quash reform will fail.

Republican lawmakers who represent prison districts and the correction officers’ unions normally block reform. But Rockefeller reform seems almost certain now that that Democrats control the Legislature and the governor’s mansion. That’s welcome news in the state that has squandered many young lives and started the national trend toward mandatory sentencing.

Yes it is.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on February 09, 2009 (boomark / email).