Gov. Spitzer: Let Those Convicted Felons Go

Tough on crime? Hardly. Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) is busy emptying prisons of some of the most dangerous thugs - murderers and rapists who prior parole boards have refused to release.

Dozens of cold-blooded killers who repeatedly begged to be released have in the last year gotten their wish in record numbers.

In all, 235 violent felons, including 215 convicted murderers, have been released by the state parole board in the first year of Gov. Spitzer's administration, records show. That's 58% more than the 148 violent felons paroled in 2006, the last year of Gov. Pataki's tenure.

Some were locked away for crimes so heinous that previous state Parole Boards refused to set them free up to five times before their luck changed under the Spitzer administration, a Daily News analysis has found.

The Spitzer administration at first refused to reveal the number of convicted murderers released on parole last year. After The News used a list of inmates suing the state to find 70 inmates convicted of murder in N.Y.C., the administration released the whole list.

There's good reason for Spitzer to refuse to release all the information - it shows just how badly Spitzer is on crime. Whereas former Governor George Pataki wrote that the state should build as many prison cells as necessary to incarcerate violent felons, Spitzer is busy opening up cell doors. That's going to have some serious blowback.