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State judges in New York asking for greater drug sentencing authority

By Douglas A. Berman

This new piece from the New York Times, headlined "Letting Judges Have a Say in Sentencing," reports on an interesting front in the debates over drug sentencing law and policy in the Empire State.  Here are excerpts: Justice Safer-Espinoza and 14 other judges who sit in courts throughout the city are circulating an unusual open letter to ask that [Rockefeller drug] laws, modified in 2005, be changed yet again. They argue that judges ? not just prosecutors ? should be able to pick among the remedies for nonviolent people who violate the drug law. For some, the judges say, that will be prison. For others, it will be treatment programs overseen by the courts. ?This is not a soft-on-crime issue,? Justice Safer-Espinoza said during a recess on Tuesday...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 25, 2009 (boomark / email).