On Friday, New York State Governor David Paterson signed into law historic reforms of the Rockefeller Drug Laws at a ceremony in Queens, New York.

The photo at left is DPA's Tony Papa -- who served twelve years under the Rockefeller Drug Laws before his sentence was commuted -- embracing David Paterson, who fought alongside him in 2003 during the first push for reforms. You can see a ton of great pictures of the event here.

There was palpable excitement, not to mention a bit of dehydration (due to a rather hot morning) in the crowd. Hundreds of reform advocates, people formerly incarcerated under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and their families gathered at the Elcore Youth and Adult Activities, Inc. -- a substance abuse treatment center where long-time Rocky reform champion Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry used to work as a drug counselor.

While advocates applauded the changes to the Rocky law, they also pointed out that the reforms should have gone even further. For example, some mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses remain intact, and harsh penalties for low-level drug offenses continue on the books.

It is clear that there is still much work to do. However, these reforms represent the beginning of a paradigm shift in how New York State carries out drug policy. The Rockefeller Drug Laws are considered the grandfather of mandatory minimum drug sentences, and for years other states looked to New York as a "model state" in how it ineffectively treats drug users and sellers. The mandatory minimum sentencing provisions initiated by Rockefeller have been replicated in many other states. However, these states slowly began scaling back their laws after overwhelming, and pretty damning evidence surfaced (and continues to surface) that 1) they don't work and 2) they lead to egregious racial disparities and other severe collateral consequences.

With this Rocky reform, New York was one of the last states to substantially reform its mand. min. laws to allow judicial discretion in drug sentencing cases. I suppose it finally realized that the inception of Rocky opened up a pandora's box of misguided dangerous and (in my opinion) criminal licensing of vast powers to the state that prevent arbitration by a judge in drug sentencing matters.

Because, y'know, who really cares about the unwieldy powers of the state versus the defendant?

Labels: New York, Rockefeller Drug Law