San Diego DA Files Motion To Reduce And Dismiss Marijuana Convictions

Speaker 1: 00:00 Thousands of San Diego ans are getting the opportunity to put the past behind them as their previous marijuana convictions are reduced or dismissed. The San Diego County DA's office has, it's filed a motion to have 25,962 felony convictions reduced to misdemeanors and an additional 1000 misdemeanor marijuana convictions dismissed. The cases stretched back over the past 50 years. The legalization of recreational marijuana in California and an assembly bill urging prosecutors to identify past convictions are the reasons for the DA's effort. Joining me is San Diego County district attorney summer Stephan and welcome to the program. Speaker 2: 00:42 Thank you Maureen. Good to be with you Speaker 1: 00:44 now. Shortly after prop 64 which legalized marijuana shortly after that proposition passed your office focused on reducing sentences for anyone serving time or on parole for marijuana crimes. That was your priority back then. Now it's past convictions and it's taken about four years to go through those records. Speaker 2: 01:06 Yes. Our main priority was to be sure that there was no one serving jail or prison time on an offense that is no longer a felony or even a crime at all. So we immediately did that work because we have a really excellent case management system and we took the responsibility to do that without anyone asking us to or petitioning to do that. So we were able to get 1600 cases handled and either released from custody room, moved from a felony list removed from probation and parole before the new law came in. If that, that said that prosecutors by July 1st of 2020 need to take the responsibility to comb through voluminous records dating back many, many years to reduce or dismiss charges. So we are ahead of schedule. Our team has worked very diligently. We put a team together working with the public defender and the superior court to get this done and I'm very glad we were able to accomplish this really massive task that's going to ask that a lot of people's lives. Speaker 1: 02:24 Can you tell us exactly what kinds of marijuana crimes have been reduced or dismissed for, for instance, has someone convicted of trafficking been eligible? Speaker 2: 02:33 Yes. A proposition 64 a made the cultivation of marijuana, which was previously a felony possession for sale of marijuana with certain exceptions. And the sale or transportation of marijuana, generally speaking, misdemeanor charges instead of what was previously felony charges. It also made the simple possession of marijuana that was previously a misdemeanor, a non criminal activity. So that is the volume of cases we them through. And that's why you have about 26,000 cases that are reflected in the motion that we filed in the court on Friday. Speaker 1: 03:20 Well, it could be the impact of this on someone's life to have a felony conviction reduced to a misdemeanor or a misdemeanor dismissed. Speaker 2: 03:28 Well, a felony conviction carries many collateral consequences well beyond, you know, the time of jail or prison that was served or uh, being on parole or probation. It affects, you know, being able to get simple loans, getting a job that you want to get. We're really hopeful that this will be like, can you lease a second chance to people that will take advantage of this second chance that they'll look at it and say they're now, you know, can can go after a nursing job or caring for an elderly or the kinds of jobs that usually are very impacted by having a felony record. We're hopeful that it will be positive and that it will actually enrich their families and them individually. Speaker 1: 04:20 A study by the ACLU and the drug policy Alliance found that pot convictions disproportionately affect communities of color despite similar rates of use. Is that something that you may have noticed in reviewing these cases? Speaker 2: 04:34 You know, we, we did not try to look at what the race was for individuals. We, we just did every case. I mean if you can imagine of the cases that we reviewed 26,000 or more, and actually if you count the ones that we unilaterally did well before the law came into effect 1600 we were just focused on whether it's qualifies. You know, I don't doubt that there there has been a disproportionate effect on communities of color. I don't have any reason to doubt that that's the case from especially from years ago, Speaker 1: 05:17 even after the court processes, all of the cases won't. Some people have to take further action to have the conviction totally expunged. Speaker 2: 05:25 We are working very hard to make this process seamless. The holder of the records is the department of justice, the attorney general and we've been working very closely with the attorney General's team because we want that effect to be seamless meaning one, the court signs these orders on these individuals that it will become accurately reflected in their criminal report. That's a task that the department of justice owns, but we are working closely like I said, and we are monitoring to make sure that the work that we did in this area will take complete effect. An impact if anyone finds out that it's not working, that is still somehow shows up in their record. We, the public defender's office has an excellent program called fresh start where they help them maneuver the system to remove and expunge and do the things to seal those records so that they don't show up and haunt someone in moving forward. Speaker 1: 06:42 And just again, if someone has a question about whether or not their name is on this list or they may be eligible for a reduction or dismissal, where should they contact Speaker 2: 06:54 the, you know, they can always contact the San Diego da dotcom, but probably some offenders feel a little nervous about doing that. They may be more comfortable because the entire application enlist is also with the San Diego County public defender's office. So that's probably a very comfortable place for someone to go. Although we welcome anyone reaching out to us. Speaker 1: 07:21 I've been speaking with San Diego County district attorney summer Stephan summer. Thank you very much. Speaker 2: 07:27 Thank you.