ALBANY – State prosecutors are urging legislators to rework a statute that provides enhanced sentences for repeat felony offenders to eliminate constitutional infirmities raised by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
A three-judge circuit panel found last week that the state’s persistent felony offender statute infringes on a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial by giving judges too much latitude to sentence offenders to up to life in prison on conviction of a third or subsequent felony.
