A bill requiring California prosecutors to erase or reduce tens of thousands of marijuana criminal convictions was approved by the state Legislature on Wednesday and now awaits Gov. Jerry Brown's signature.
When voters passed Proposition 64 in 2016 to allow adult use of marijuana, they also eliminated several pot-related crimes. The proposition also applied retroactively to pot convictions, but provided no mechanism or guidance on how those eligible could erase their convictions or have felonies reduced to misdemeanors.
The Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would make that happen.
The bill orders the state Department of Justice to identify eligible cases between 1975 and 2016 and send the results to the appropriate prosecutor.
The state DOJ estimates that almost 220,000 cases are eligible for erasure or reduction. The DOJ has until July 1, 2019, to compile the list of eligible cases and forward it to the appropriate district attorney's office.
Prosecutors then have until July 1, 2020, to decide which cases on the DOJ list they want to challenge.
Still a shit tier nanny state though, but good on them for this. ---
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