There are currently several proposals to change New York's harsh drug laws. Currently these laws provide for mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years to life for the sale or two ounces or possession of four ounces of a controlled substance, such as cocaine of heroin.

Possession of two ounces or sale of a half-ounce calls for a minimum three-year term. For a single $10 sale of cocaine, the minimum term is one to three years. In both cases, prosecutors note that many offenders plead to lesser charges or are diverted to shorter drug treatment or shock incarceration programs.

Additionally, a prison sentence is mandated under a separate law for any second felony conviction. This the Second Felony Offender Law that has been responsible for a major part of the increase in the prison population.

You can read ReconsiDer's position on these laws and the proposed changes outlined below by reading the Testimony of ReconsiDer to the NYS Senate, available on this website.

Currently the relevant bills in the legislature are:

Assembly Bill A852 (Principle sponsor: Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry, Democrat-Queens, Chair of the Committee on Corrections)
Senate Bill S4860 (Principle Sponsor: Senator Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan/Upper West Side)

These are full repeal bills-the passage of either one would eliminate the Rockefeller Drug Laws from New York's penal code.

If passed, they would accomplish four essential objectives:

1. Restore sentencing discretion to trial judges in all drug cases.

2. Make reform retroactive so that current inmates incarcerated under the drug laws can petition the courts for review of their sentences.

3. Expand the funding for alternatives to incarceration, including drug treatment, job training and education so that judges have an appropriate place to send the offenders they decide should not be imprisoned.

4. Significantly reduce sentence lengths for drug offenses.


Governor Pataki's latest proposal (no Bill number)

• The press release for Governor Pataki's recently unveiled Rockefeller Drug Law reform proposal states that the bill would "overhaul the drug law sentencing structure." This claim is seriously misleading. Governor Pataki's new reform proposal fails to address the issues that are essential to any meaningful change in New York's drug laws. The sentence reductions included in the Governor's plan are a positive step, but, they are the plan's only positive step. Among the proposal's numerous defects, the 3 most serious are the complete absence of judicial discretion, the omission of any funding for drug treatment, and the addition of mandatory punitive enhancements for certain offenses.

• The State will continue to needlessly incarcerate minor offenders, taxpayers will continue to waste millions of dollars per year, and the criminal justice system will continue to be characterized by imbalance, injustice and racial bias. District attorneys will still have authority over the disposition of all drug cases and thousands of poor people of color, guilty of minor drug offenses, will still inappropriately be sent to prison.

Assembly Bill 7078 (Principle sponsor: Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry, Democrat-Queens, Chair of the Committee on Corrections)

This is the Assembly reform bill.

Bill 7078 takes more significant steps toward meaningful reform. For example, the Assembly proposes a much broader application of judicial discretion and the allocation of about $120 million to alternative punishments and drug treatment. However, the Assembly position falls far short of repeal and has several major defects:

• It does not call for a full restoration of judicial authority in all drug cases. For example, judges have no discretion in A-I and A-2 cases, cases where the drug offender has violence in his/her background (regardless of how long ago the "violence" happened), and drug cases where minors are involved. Since the prosecutors have authority over the indictment process, these exceptions will enable district attorneys to maintain their control over the outcome of far too many drug cases.

• Although the Assembly proposal would double the weight threshold required for certain drug offenses, weight would remain the sole factor in determining the charge, not, for example, the defendant's role in the drug transaction.

• It fails to provide a meaningful program for retroactivity.