Pubdate: Sun, 05 Jun 2005 Source: New York Daily News (NY) Copyright: 2005 Daily News, L.P. Contact: http://www.nydailynews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/295 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?140 (Rockefeller Drug Laws) KEEP DRUG THUGS IN PRISON Convicts aplenty are applying for release under New York's newly relaxed Rockefeller drug laws, the penal statutes that imposed long sentences on even first-time offenders caught trafficking in relatively small amounts of narcotics. Many deserve to be let go. But not John McCaskell. When Gov. Pataki and the Legislature eased the Rockefeller laws last year, the common assumption was that judges would extend mercy to the sort of people who had more or less wandered into a low-level drug transaction and wound up in prison for 25 years or so. McCas-kell is not such an individual. A professional drug dealer with three felony convictions, McCaskell has asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marcy Kahn to use her new discretion to cut him loose. He has won the support of correction advocates - which raises a great big red flag that judges may be on the verge of returning some real bad actors to the streets. In 1988, McCaskell was convicted of trying to bribe a cop who had caught him with 25 vials of crack. He also pleaded guilty that year to a felony drug sale and was out on parole in 1990 when he was busted in Washington Heights for possession of 4 ounces of cocaine, enough to produce $11,000 worth of crack. Suspiciously enough, after McCaskell voiced concerns about the cabbie who had driven him to the drug-buy location, the cabbie was murdered. No cabbie, no witness - and no connection, McCaskell's lawyers maintain. Nonetheless, he was sentenced to 25 to life on overwhelming evidence he was a professional crack dealer. The Manhattan district attorney's office has put McCaskell's record in front of Kahn in arguing that she should keep him behind bars. Prosecutors also allege that McCaskell was part of the Queens drug gang that executed rookie cop Eddie Byrne as he guarded a witness' house in 1988. McCaskell was never charged in that case, and his lawyer disputes his involvement. McCaskell's supporters cry that it would be unfair to hold him responsible for unproven allegations. Fine. Let's just hold him responsible as a three-time loser. He is a gangster with a dangerous disdain for authority. His record in prison includes 11 instances of defiant, disruptive behavior - one involving a homemade weapon in his locker. The judge who sentenced McCaskell, Justice Allen Alpert, characterized him as a person who had "repeatedly demonstrated his inclination to attempt to manipulate the criminal justice system for his benefit." He is trying to do the same now. No one of his ilk should be a candidate for release. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake