Eliminates mandatory minimum sentences; repealer

• Democratic84

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Zellnor Myrie says this is needed

A vestige of the 1970s-era Rockefeller Drug Laws, New York's harsh mandatory minimum sentences contribute to mass incarceration and unjust case outcomes. Right now, over 30,000 people are incarcerated in New York's prisons. Nearly 75% are Black or Brown. In 2019 alone, over 9,000 people were subjected to a two or three-strikes law. Three-quarters were people of color, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. More than 105,000 children have a parent serving time in a New York jail or prison, which devastates families and increases the likelihood of a child's future incarceration. It costs nearly $70,000 per year to incar- cerate a person in state prison with an annual prison system price tag of $3 billion. These are billions of dollars New York State could spend on education, housing, healthcare, community-based anti-violence, and restorative justice programs - all of which help to create real communi- ty safety. Survivors overwhelmingly prefer investments in the community to lengthy prison sentences, by a factor of 15 to 1. Under New York's current draconian sentencing laws, 98% of convictions in our state are the result of guilty pleas - not trials - which undermines the constitu- tional right to trial. In New York State, 98% of convictions are the result of plea deals. Mandatory minimums are a significant part of what has created this system of pleas whereby New Yorkers forfeit their constitutional right to trial and most people are convicted without a chance to mount a mean- ingful defense. By requiring a judge to hand down a minimum prison sentence based on the charges levied by a prosecutor, mandatory sentences transfer sentencing power from judges to prosecutors and give them unfair and overwhelming leverage in plea negotiations. Prosecutors frequently threaten to bring charges carrying long mandatory minimum sentences to scare the accused person into pleading guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. This legislation would eliminate mandatory minimum sentences - including New York's two and three-strike laws - allowing judges to consider the individual factors in a case. In doing so, the Eliminate Mandatory Minimums Act will finally undo the harm of the Rockefeller Drug Law era.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.