ICYMI: NY Post – “Rockefeller Reform Could Backfire If Dope Fiends Are Released”
Assemblyman Alessi voted in favor of “Get Out of Jail Free Cards” for
drug dealers – some of whom may be rapists and other dangerous criminals
“In case you missed it (ICYMI), the New York Post has a frightening story on the estimated 1,500 convicted drug criminals waiting to be sprung from prison under newly enacted Rockefeller Drug Law reforms including one drug dealer who “took part in a vicious gang rape, another outfitted his pad with closed-circuit TV to thwart cops, and a third swiped a car with a child in the back seat and led police on a high-speed chase.”
Democrat Assemblyman Marc Alessi (D-Wading River) voted in favor of this controversial measure as part of state budget bill A.156-B, which allows almost all convicted class B felony controlled substance offenders, including drug dealers, to apply for re-sentencing before a court.
Among those who could potentially see their sentences reduced or even be freed are criminals who sold drugs to children or sold drugs on school grounds. Other drug dealers that may be released committed crimes such as operating meth labs. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, up to 1,500 inmates will be eligible for re-sentencing.
“It’s clear from the New York Post that Assemblyman Alessi’s misguided vote in favor of offering drug dealers ‘get out of jail free’ cards could have even more disastrous consequences for the safety of our communities than originally thought,” said Kathleen Hennessey, Spokeswoman for the New York Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC).
The New York Post article is linked above and pasted below.
New York Post
Rockefeller reform could backfire if dope fiends are released
By ALEX GINSBERG, WILLIAM J. GORTA, DENISE BUFFA and LAURA ITALIANO
Last updated: 8:09 AM November 23, 2009
One drug dealer took part in a vicious gang rape, another outfitted his pad with closed-circuit TV to thwart cops, and a third swiped a car with a child in the back seat and led police on a high-speed chase.
And they could soon be back on a street near you.
As scores of small-time drug convicts hit the courts trying to take advantage of the recent reform of the stiff Rockefeller-era drug laws, there are other, ruthless, repeat criminals hoping to get free in the same way.
“We have no problem with anyone with a limited record who performed well in prison,” said Bridget Brennan, the city’s special narcotics prosecutor. “But we are not seeing many like that.”
“The bulk of the requests we are getting are from prisoners who . . . have extensive criminal records and serious disciplinary issues while in prison.”
Those thugs include rapist John Pipkin, who had been out on bail for the armed robbery of a cabby when the violent 1992 attack occurred.
Then there’s Tony Hickman, who operates a carefully monitored drug den that preys on young men to use as his carriers, and Carlos Blanco, whose 1991 carjacking with a child in the back was the second high-speed chase he led cops on in two weeks.
Albany’s softening of the tough drug laws makes it possible for an estimated 650 people convicted of lower-level drug offenses citywide — including those perps — to apply for sentence reduction.
Once punishable by indeterminate terms as high as 8 1/3 to 25 years, those crimes now require a determinate sentence — not a range — no higher than nine years.
About 180 petitions have been received in the five boroughs. Prosecutors said they were opposing 57. About 16 convicts have already been resentenced.
The change in the law was carefully written to keep hard-core offenders from getting sentence reductions at the same time.
One safeguard written into the law excludes anyone convicted of a violent felony in the previous 10 years.
To be sure, scores of mostly harmless, hard-luck junkies — the intended target group — have been taking advantage of the reform.
Earlier this month, Emil Gonzalez, 48, doing 10 to 20 years for selling $20 of heroin to an undercover cop, got his term shortened to 7½.
He’s agreed to enter the ComALERT program, a special monitoring and re-entry program managed by the Brooklyn DA.
But once the clear-cut cases are squared away, the process gets messier.
If an applicant shows he’s eligible, the law says judges should grant resentencing unless “substantial justice” requires otherwise.
That’s where the real fights begin — and most of the cases involving hardened criminals are set to be heard over the next few months.
First Deputy DA Anne Swern said those are few and far between, at least in Brooklyn.
“I would say that profile is in the distinct minority of the kind of cases — a guy that’s pretty high up on the food chain, a guy who’s pretty savvy and who has the ability to destroy neighborhoods,” she said. “We need to look at each petition very carefully, because we want to make sure we’re representing to the court the total picture.”
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