Almost 50,000 individuals who have been convicted of marijuana-related offenses are going to have their convictions erased or reduced, according to a statement on Monday from the district attorney of Los Angeles County.
In partnership with Code for America, a nonprofit tech organization, Los Angeles County will recognize decades-old court cases it would otherwise have been not able to find. Utilizing this technology, it is going to eliminate marijuana convictions altogether or decrease felony sentences to misdemeanors.
“This cooperation will improve people’s lives by erasing the mistakes of their past and lead them on a course to a greater future. Helping to clear that path by reducing or dismissing cannabis convictions may lead to someone securing a job or profiting from different applications which might have been inaccessible to them previously,” L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey stated in a statement. The district attorney for San Joaquin County, Tori Verber Salazar, also declared her county could operate with Code for America to erase nearly 4,000 marijuana-related offenses from the public document.
As part of the measure, voters also accepted erasing past marijuana-related convictions and penalizing re-sentencing for eligible offenders. San Francisco was the first California city to put the measure into action, announcing last month that it had been partnering with Code for America to divert or reduce the sentences of nearly 9,300 offenders arrested on marijuana charges.
In 2015, more than 2,139 people in the state of California were convicted and jailed on marijuana-only crimes . Almost a quarter of those offenders were black, a disproportionate percent when compared with whites arrested on marijuana-only fees, according to data from Drug Policy Action; that monitors with national data, which similarly indicates that existing federal marijuana laws for low-level offenders possess a disproportionate influence on the black community.
California is not the first state to retroactively eliminate or decrease marijuana-related sentences. In 2014, following the state of Oregon legalized marijuana possession, a 2015 ballot initiative permitted for certain charges, such as ownership of up to an ounce of marijuana, to become retroactively expunged. Other lawmakers in cities such as Chicago and Baltimore have vowed to expunge thousands of marijuana convictions.
Presently, recreational marijuana use for individuals over the age of 21 is lawful in 10 states and Washington D.C., while medical marijuana use remains legal in 33 states. Code to America’s Clear My Record effort intends to clean 250,000 marijuana convictions nationwide by the end of this season.
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