A Washington, D.C. invoice to mechanically expunge sure marijuana possession data took impact final week following a congressional evaluate.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) allowed the broad legal justice reform laws to be enacted with out her signature in January. It was then transmitted to Congress, the place lawmakers declined to overturn it, and have become efficient on March 10.
The D.C. Council unanimously handed the Second Likelihood Modification Act in December.
Previous to passage, lawmakers adopted an modification from Councilmember Christina Henderson (D) that clarified the expungements language, specifying that data associated to possession of “any amount of marijuana” earlier than the District’s legalization legislation took impact in February 2015 would have to be mechanically expunged by the courts.
D.C. legalized possession of as much as two ounces of hashish, however legal data don’t at all times mirror the amount, “so the courtroom and litigants can’t inform from the file itself whether or not the file qualifies as decriminalized conduct,” the rationale part of Henderson’s modification to the now-enacted legislation says.
“Together with all easy possession, moderately than simply possession of two ounces or much less, clarifies the intent and permits the courtroom and litigants to raised implement the legislation,” it says.
Right here’s the textual content of the revised expungements part that has develop into legislation:
“The Court docket shall order automated expungement of all legal data and courtroom proceedings associated solely to citations, arrests, costs, or convictions for the fee of a legal offense that has subsequently been decriminalized, legalized, or held to be unconstitutional by the Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia or the Supreme Court docket of the US, or data associated solely to easy possession for any amount of marijuana in violation of D.C. Code § 48-904.01(d)(1) earlier than February 15, 2015…”
Expungements will have to be processed by January 1, 2025, or “inside 90 days after termination of the case by the prosecutor or last disposition, whichever is later.”
Beforehand, the bill broadly stated that the courtroom “shall order automated expungement of all legal data and courtroom proceedings associated solely to citations, arrests, costs, or convictions for the fee of a legal offense that has subsequently been decriminalized, legalized, or held to be unconstitutional.”
NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano celebrated the brand new legislation in a weblog publish on Wednesday, saying that “hundreds of D.C. residents unduly carry the burden and stigma of a previous conviction for conduct that District lawmakers, most People and a rising variety of states now not take into account to be against the law.”
“Our sense of justice and our ideas of equity demand that the courts transfer swiftly to proper the previous wrongs of hashish prohibition and criminalization,” he said.
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In the meantime, even because the Biden administration works to advertise the thought of taking a brand new method to marijuana coverage, the president is once more proposing to maintain banning D.C. from permitting hashish gross sales.
Whereas President Joe Biden’s newly launched price range request for Fiscal Yr 2024 does preserve a long-standing appropriations rider to forestall Justice Division interference in state- and territory-level medical hashish applications that advocates help, they’re dismayed to see D.C.’s autonomy on marijuana commerce is being focused by the president for the third yr in a row.
D.C. voters accepted hashish legalization on the poll in 2014, however the rider from Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) has represented a significant impediment that has saved native lawmakers from enacting commerce laws that’s been put ahead over current years.
District lawmakers have taken a number of steps to broaden hashish entry whereas being certain by the Harris rider. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) signed laws in January to broaden the District’s present medical hashish program. Amongst different provisions, it accommodates language codifying that adults can self-certify as medical marijuana sufferers and not using a physician’s advice, successfully circumventing the congressional blockade, for instance.
That laws was transmitted to Congress for evaluate in February and is predicted to develop into legislation on March 28.
Whereas congressional lawmakers allowed the enactment of the D.C. legal justice reform laws with the marijuana expungements provision, they did not too long ago vote to overrule a separate native measure to considerably revise the jurisdiction’s legal code—an motion supported by the president that’s equally generated criticism from statehood advocates.
Within the interim, D.C. lawmakers proceed to introduce hashish gross sales measures, which they’re allowed to debate so long as the reforms aren’t enacted, in keeping with the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO).
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