New York Times, July 18,
2002
The Ruinous Drug Laws
By
BOB HERBERT
If you want to see the true craziness of the Rockefeller drug
laws just
compare the cases of Andre Neverson, a violent felon currently
being hunted
for the murder of two women, and Kenia Tatis, a 32-year-old
mother of three
who is serving a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life in
state prison.
Ten years ago Mr. Neverson got into a fight with his
girlfriend outside a
medical school in Brooklyn, where she worked. The
woman's uncle came by and
saw them fighting. When he tried to intervene, Mr.
Neverson became enraged,
pulled a gun and shot the uncle five times.
The uncle survived. Mr. Neverson served five years in prison for
attempted
murder and was released.
Last week he shot his own sister
to death, police said, and then kidnapped
and murdered another former
girlfriend. He was still on the loose yesterday.
Kenia Tatis was arrested
a few years ago on a charge of possessing 20 ounces
of cocaine. She had
never before been in trouble with the law and insisted
she was innocent.
There were no drugs found in her possession when she was
arrested, but she
was convicted at a trial in which a woman testified against
her in return
for a lighter sentence for herself.
There is plenty that is wrong with
this picture. Andre Neverson, a mortal
threat to anyone he encounters, does
just five years for shooting a man five
times, while Kenia Tatis, a
nonviolent narcotics offender with no prior
criminal record, does a
staggering 15 years to life.
How about a dose of sanity? After 29 futile
and tragic years, it is time to
bring the curtain down on the
institutionalized cruelty of the Rockefeller
drug laws. There is no way to
justify sentencing nonviolent low-level drug
offenders to prison terms that
are longer than those served by some killers
and rapists.
Two
packages of legislative reforms are floating around, one from Gov. George
Pataki and one from the State Assembly. Neither goes far enough. But with
more than 19,000 drug offenders jamming the prisons and draining the state's
resources, it's important to at least get a start on remedying the worst
abuses.
The essential problem with the Rockefeller laws is that the
punishments are
both draconian and mandatory. As the Correctional
Association of New York has
pointed out, "The penalties apply without regard
to the circumstances of the
offense or the individual's character or
background."
Major drug dealers are seldom snared in the vast net of
these laws. But tens
of thousands of addicts and low-level peddlers â?" the
vast majority of them
black or Hispanic â?" have been sent away for long
stretches. Judges do not
have the discretion to impose lighter sentences in
cases that warrant them,
or to refer offenders to drug treatment programs as
an alternative to
incarceration when that is appropriate.
Both of the
current reform proposals would make some changes in sentencing
procedures,
with the Assembly package giving judges substantially more
discretion. But
neither package would actually repeal the Rockefeller laws.
The ethnic
differentials in the enforcement of the drug laws are
extraordinary. While
there is wide use of illegal drugs across the ethnic
spectrum, including
among whites, 94 percent of the people doing time for
drug offenses in the
state of New York are black or Hispanic.
There is now broad
acknowledgment that enactment of such rigid laws by Gov.
Nelson Rockefeller
and the State Legislature in 1973 was a wrongheaded
approach to the twin
scourges of crime and drug addiction. One of the
original sponsors of the
laws, former State Senator John R. Dunne, who served
as chairman of the
Senate Committee on Crime and Corrections in 1973, said on
this page a
couple of months ago that he regretted his role in the passage of
the
Rockefeller laws, which he described as both ineffective and wasteful.
"New York," he said, "now sends more African-American and Latino men to
prison each year than it graduates from its state colleges and
universities."
Governor Pataki and the leaders of the Assembly do not
appear to be closing
in on an agreement that would begin to reform these
destructive laws. Another
opportunity is slipping away. Next year will mark
the 30th anniversary of
Nelson Rockefeller's big
mistake.