FEW PRISONERS ARE FREED UNDER NEW DRUG LAWS

When Gov. George E. Pataki signed a law a year ago reducing what he
called "unduly long sentences" for drug crimes, he predicted that
hundreds of nonviolent drug offenders would be released from prison.

But so far, only 142 prisoners - about 30 percent of those originally
eligible for new sentences under the revised law - have been freed,
according to a report released yesterday by the Legal Aid Society.

The new sentencing provisions of the Drug Law Reform Act of 2004
changed the mandatory sentencing laws imposed in 1973 when Nelson
Rockefeller was governor.

Those laws have been criticized for requiring judges to impose a
sentence of 15 years to life on anyone convicted of selling two ounces
or possessing four ounces of narcotics, whether they were drug lords
or low level couriers.

The new law increased the amount of drugs that trigger long sentences,
and reduced those sentences to eight to 20 years. And it allowed
prisoners serving the longest prison terms to ask to be resentenced
under the new standards.

The Pataki administration believes the drug law reforms are working as
they were intended to, said Chauncey G. Parker, the governor's
director of criminal justice.

A major reason that relatively few prisoners have been released is
that district attorneys are still opposing resentencing requests and,
in some cases, asking judges to impose long prison terms, said William
Gibney, a senior attorney for legal aid who wrote the report.