Power: The Importance of Being Ernie

A year in prison for campaign finance abuses transformed former State Attorney General Ernie Preate from a grandstanding death-penalty advocate to a humble prisoner-rights crusader. Or so he needs us to believe

It gets you wondering, his refusal to admit what he did wrong, coupled with that undimmed drive for the spotlight: Has Ernie really changed at all?

 

Ernie Preate isn’t what he used to be. The day Ernie signed his guilty plea, his father died. It was a time of huge loss for him: He had to resign as attorney general, he was barred from running for any state office ever again, he had to surrender his law license, he would soon have to give up his freedom.

Ernie reclines in his swivel chair, in his tiny Scranton office, as he tells his comeback tale, which begins during his 11-month stay in a federal pen in snowy Duluth, Minnesota. This office is free of morale problems. “Joyce,” Ernie says to his secretary, “would you please send this file on to the lawyer who just left. Thanks.” Whoa! What a sea change! This time around, Ernie is adored by his staff of five. He inherited the firm from his father, Ernest Preate Sr., a man who, for Ernie, was hard to please (going back to Ernie flunking his first bar exam after graduating from Penn Law School in 1965 and escaping into the Marines), and from his late brother Robert.

His prison stay was an eye-opener for Ernie, one of the principal proponents of mandatory minimum sentences. He saw how ineffective and unfair the draconian rules are that put people away for years — “that mandatory sentences are being borne on the backs of people of color. Eighty percent of the mandatories are on the backs of blacks.” Simply put, he says, the problem is that mandatories meant for big-time traffickers are mostly affecting the nonviolent addict, who ends up spending years of his life in jail when he should be getting treatment instead.

Still, prison being prison, Ernie left ­Duluth with only two major accomplishments: He got the pots and pans sparkling clean, and he got the commissary to stock a laundry detergent that would get his clothes white. Ernie got around the rule against selling bleach in the commissary (because of the acid content) by suggesting the commissary officer look for Tide with nonchlorine bleach alternative on his next trip to Kmart or Walmart.

Once he got out, though, and got his law license back, Ernie really did walk the talk. Now he lobbies for innovative ways to deal with long-term incarceration. He reaches out across the state for input on writing legislation, even partnering with an old foe, Larry Frankel, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, to get things done. Together they’ve formed a task force, appointed by State Senator Stewart Greenleaf of Montgomery County, that is analyzing the prison population with an eye toward removing the seriously ill and geriatric lifers from the criminal justice system to more appropriate and cost-effective settings. “I have no reason whatsoever to doubt the sincerity and passion he brings to it,” says Frankel.