A Law and Order Kind of Guy

Talk to David Soares and you get a sense of a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy, not the sort that would create a seismic shift in public policy. But Soares' Nov. 2 victory in the race for District Attorney of New York's Albany County seems to have jarred loose changes that once seemed impossible; reforms in the state's so-called Rockefeller drug laws, which are so harsh that an international human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, called for reform.

In mid-November, after 30 years of inaction in the face of public pressure, the New York State legislature changed the laws significantly, reducing the 15-to-life mandatory sentences for some offenders and allowing some 400 already-incarcerated to apply for re-sentencing under the new guidelines. While it's far from the full repeal many hope for, reform advocates praise the move as a first step toward more wide-ranging reform. They also credit the election of the soft-spoken Soares, 35, with the break in the decades-long legislative logjam.

Soares ran against his boss, Paul Clyne, the incumbent DA and outspoken supporter of the Rockefeller drug laws who fired his assistant DA in June, just minutes after Soares announced his challenge. The race between the two turned largely on their differences over the issue.

Reform was but one piece of Soares' platform, but one that evidently struck the deepest nerve. The New York state laws, enacted in 1973 and named for then-governor Nelson Rockefeller, removed judicial discretion and imposed dizzyingly steep sentences – a first-time offense for the possession for sale of two ounces of a narcotic substance or just simple possession of four ounces could yield 15 years-to-life. The recent law change would reduce the sentence range to eight to 20 years.

The racial inequities in the laws' application are also striking: whites use drugs at rates comparable to African-Americans and Latinos, but only 4.9% of those serving time under Rockefeller statutes are white, while 48.7% are black and 45.5% Latino, according to statistics complied by the New York City Legal Aid Society.

And the cost – the 17,000 individuals imprisoned under the statutes run the state of New York a $550 million-plus annual bill.

Those were the arguments that Soares, Albany County's first African-American district attorney, makes for reform and that he feels resonated with those who supported his campaign. Bottom line: "This is a law that doesn't work; it's ineffective," he says. The issue mobilized his base for different reasons. "You can look at the disproportionate impact that the Rockefeller drug laws have on different communities and that's in and of itself enough to get those folks involved and passionate," he says. In more conservative quarters, the cost of keeping drug laws in place make calls for reform make sense.

Measured Approach

Soares doesn't come off like a firebrand – he talks like a lawyer, sometimes even like a cop, and refers to himself as law enforcement. He is, after all, a DA. He sounds downright law-and-order as he recalls a conversation with a district attorney down-state from Albany who disagrees with much of Soares' reform position, particularly that judges should have discretion on sentencing.

"The fear is always going to be that you take down a mid-to-upper level drug kingpin and that drug kingpin, through his counsel, puts together a little story and the judge gives him a slap on the wrist," Soares says, seemingly sympathetic. But ultimately, he doesn't buy it; at least in Albany County. "Judges are subject to recall," he notes.

With such a measured approach, Soares seems an unlikely figure to galvanize the ardently pro-reform grassroots network that carried him into office in a three-way race. (His former boss, Clyne, dropped out the final weekend after polling in the single digits.) But there he was on election night surrounded by a jubilant crowd of supporters.