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Seattle judges throw out 15 years of marijuana convictions
- gpmcadam 8y agoWhat about the people who were convicted 15 years and 1 month ago? Or 16 years? Or 20 years? Feels pretty arbitrary.
- Strom 8y agoYou gotta start small and iterate. Going for world peace with the first step isn't going to work.
- gdfasfklshg4 8y agoThis is terrible news for those that didn't get included. The public will miss the details and think that everyone was included. Anyone with a conviction outside this arbitrary time period will be assumed to have some extenuating circumstances that meant that their conviction was upheld.
- enedil 8y agoIs that really worse for people who were omitted by this legislature that this legislature passed? Because I can't see any change.
- gdfasfklshg4 8y agoYes it is. Before when a potential employer saw a cannabis conviction on a criminal records check they would have potentially ignored it because it is no longer a crime. Now they will think that all the previous convictions that should have been struck off have been struck off and any that show will be treated as having had enough merit to have been deliberately missed out.
- enedil 8y agoWell, then he's dumb, because he should at least acknowledge that the conviction date is from before 1996, so who knows what happened?
- marshmellowtest 8y agoLaw is not a lean startup. In many countries there are constitutional principles to prevent arbitrary pardon. If a law was unjust all prisoners are freed.
- true_religion 8y agoThe article leaves it out, but I found ought that in 2003, Washington state passed legislature stating marijuana convictions were the lowest priority crimes. I believe thats why the cut off is 15 years, to mark when the societal law and understanding changed.
- mysterypie 8y ago> Judges in Seattle have decided to quash convictions for marijuana possession for anyone prosecuted in the city between 1996 and 2010. Possession of marijuana became legal in the state of Washington in 2012. Another question is why didn't they quash convictions between 1996 and present, or between 1996 and 2012 when it became legal? Such obvious questions that aren't addressed by the article -- and this is the BBC no less.
- maaark 8y agoWhy leave out 2011-(mid)2012?
- TomMarius 8y agoSupposedly because they had a policy that caused them to throw out all cases in the meantime, like it is done now in some jurisdictions.
- mikestew 8y agoI’d have to go digging around to do better than my middle-aged memory allows, but at some point shortly before legalization, Seattle PD said pot was they’re lowest priority (translation: don’t force our hand by smoking in front of a grade school, and we’ll leave you alone). Could be that there are no convictions to overturn 2010-2012.
- bb611 8y agoThe article doesn't address this, but the 15 years in question are actually 1996-2010. The city attorney's motion doesn't explain why, though it implies that the motion covers all cases prosecuted by that office.
- hownottowrite 8y agoThe actual motion from the City Attorney which outlines the rationale. https://news.seattle.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/HolmesMotionToVacateMarijuana.pdf https://news.seattle.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/HolmesMo...
- kazishariar 8y agoIf this happens retroactively, 2/3 of the jail pop[ulations would be free to live their lives without pain, despair, the misery of 6x10 21 hours a day even. Fact.
- craigharley 8y agoDo you have a source for that? Not saying you're wrong but would be interested to read. I had a quick look but couldn't find one.
- XCabbage 8y agoI'm not even sure what he's trying to say, but if he means to imply that 2/3 US prison inmates are inside for drug offences, it's nonsense. The real number isn't even 15%. See https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offenders-wont-end-mass-incarceration/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offender....
- craigharley 8y agoAccording to the Bureau of Prisons, there are 207,847 people incarcerated in federal prisons. Roughly half (48.6 percent) are in for drug offenses. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are 1,358,875 people in state prisons. Of them, 16 percent have a drug crime as their most serious offense. There were also 744,600 inmates in county and city jails. (The BOP data is current as of July 16. From BJS, the latest jail statistics are from midyear 2014, and the latest prison statistics from year-end 2013.) That’s an incarceration rate of about 725 people per 100,000 population. Looks like for federal prisons it's as high as 48.6%, but that looks like it's for all drugs not just cannabis. It's also probably too big a leap to speculate how many people are incarcerated for drug related incidents (theft to get money to feed a habit for example). Crimes which would probably be greatly reduced in a treatment over prohibition system.
- wccrawford 8y agoYour quote says that 16% are in with drugs being their most serious crime. 48% include drugs as a crime, but 2/3 of them have a more serious crime as well. So I'd say the parent is right that 16% are in for drugs and would be set free if drugs were legal. The others in that 48% wouldn't be.
- drpgq 8y agoI wonder what will happen in Canada once October 17th, the legalization date comes.
- adventured 8y agoThe majority of drug offenses (~55,000 of ~95,000) in Canada for 2016 were cannabis related. There must be hundreds of thousands of people living in Canada with criminal records due to marijuana prohibition. One would expect they'd wipe all of the records clean, recent or distant past.
- GuB-42 8y agoMaking something legal now doesn't mean you didn't commit a crime before. They may wipe records clean but there is no guarantee. And I suppose most of the records are not just the result of simple consumption. It probably involved trafficking or maybe DUI, which will continue being illegal.
- frockington 8y agoI'm hoping more Canadians become stoners and push wages up for people with clean urine
- mitjak 8y agohow exactly would having more stoners up the wages?
- justtopost 8y agoSmaller hiring pool leading to higher wages for the sober drones is the implied hypothesis here if I am reading it right.
- mikestew 8y agoAs a Seattle-area resident who's a few years ahead of our neighbors to the north, I can tell that you're likely to be disappointed. If for no other reason than the places that drug-test typically pay less to begin with.
- mabbo 8y ago> "For too many who call Seattle home, a misdemeanour marijuana conviction or charge has created barriers to opportunity - good jobs, housing, loans and education," she said. The problem isn't the marijuana convictions, the problem is a society that believes people with criminal records can and should have their entire lives ruined for it. It's a society that doesn't believe in rehabilitation, just "good people" and "bad people".
- onetimemanytime 8y agoCurious: don't these people still have to report the arrests in some forms /for some jobs even if they're vacated? "Have you ever been arrested or jailed..." I know US immigration specifically asks to mention even if pardoned or expunged.
- leetcrew 8y agonot sure what types of jobs would make you answer that question (outside of security maybe), but at least in principle, such questions should be completely illegitimate within the US legal system.
- teh_klev 8y agoIn Scotland there's a system called "Disclosure"[0]. There are different types of disclosure[1]: - Basic disclosure - Standard disclosure - Enhanced disclosure - Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) Scheme Depending on the level of disclosure, "spent" convictions may need to be disclosed. You can however apply for spent convictions to be removed from the disclosure process. As an employee for a private consultancy which was carrying out software development work for the Scottish Government I had to get a Basic Disclosure to be able to perform my duties on that contract. It's not that unusual for certain types of work. [0]: https://www.mygov.scot/organisations/disclosure-scotland/ https://www.mygov.scot/organisations/disclosure-scotland/ [1]: https://www.mygov.scot/disclosure-types/ https://www.mygov.scot/disclosure-types/
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
- Symbiote 8y agoFor comparison, what happened just after alcohol prohibition ended in the USA? (I'm not American, so not too familiar with this.)
- phatboyslim 8y agoThis comparison isn't useful IMO because alcohol had actually been legal prior to prohibition introduced by puritanism. If anything I'd say prohibition gave people pause since alcoholism and heavy drinking was quite common prior to it being introduced. (Note: I'm not against marijuana legalization/decriminalization - just making an observation).
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoTo be fair, marijuana was criminalized at the same time as booze, and by the same people, but yeah, we've now had multi-generational prohibition instead of a decade.
- Floegipoky 8y agoAnd huge amounts of funding for fraudulent smear campaigns which have swayed public opinion during that time.
- bunderbunder 8y agoThings bounced back petty quickly. It only took about 80 years for us to start having access to good beer again. More seriously - I don't think organized crime went away. It was a big problem before prohibition, and it continued to be a big problem after. However, it may have been weakened by the loss of an extremely profitable revenue source. Alcoholism dropped precipitously during prohibition, and started coming back again after it ended. Given that the US has a huge problem with drunk driving, one could probably make a cogent argument that, with the repeal of prohibition, we replaced a relatively small but sensational amount of organized crime with a large, but relatively socially acceptable, amount of disorganized crime. One might presume that other crimes that tend to go hand-in-hand with alcohol, such as domestic and sexual assault, also got a boost from the repeal. I'm not sure how well any of this applies to marijuana. With marijuana, the worst (non-government-imposed) externalities seem to be related to how gangs behave when they're financed by the illegal marijuana trade. With alcohol, the organized crime was a problem, but the worst problems seemed (and seem) to be a direct result of how people behave when they've been drinking. One common thread, though, is that opposition to both bans seems to be a reaction to government overreach as much as anything else. The penalties being handed down for alcohol possession were every bit as outrageous as the ones we see for marijuana possession nowadays, and that played a big part in public perception of the law.
- geggam 8y agoWonder if the asset forfeiture involved in all of those cases have to be returned ?
- ams6110 8y ago"542 people could have their convictions dismissed by mid-November" That's not the number I was expecting when I saw the headline. That's 36 people a year, in a city the size of Seattle. I was expecting it to be thousands if not more. Maybe shows that not very many people are ever convicted for simple possession alone. It's usually an additional charge along with dealing, violence, or both.
- jjulius 8y agoThe judge threw out convictions that occurred in Seattle between 1996 and 2010. In 2003, Seattle effectively decriminalized marijuana by making enforcement of cannabis laws the "lowest priority". That covers half of the window the judge looked at.
- therealdrag0 8y agoA lot of people are arrested for pot (nation wide) but very few are held. Some related stats here: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/16/17243080/marijuana-legalization-mass-incarceration-boehner https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/16/17243080/m...
- dcole2929 8y agoThis is absolutely great and needs to happen in many more places. One of the worst parts about the draconian mandatory sentencing laws so many places have is that prison turns otherwise good people into criminals. It's almost like the entire process was designed to be that way. Not only is prison itself a harsh environment that treats people like chattel, and often forces people to make morally suspect decisions to ensure their own survival. But once they're released they're given a scarlet letter that prevents them from integrating back into society. They can't find jobs, and sometimes even housing. They're finances and credit are generally in ruins from abruptly losing everything. It's no wonder so many people re-offend and generally for worse offenses. The system takes away everything and prevents them from even attempting to claw there way back. And to top it off there are these ridiculously long probationary periods where the smallest offense can land one back in prison. Oh and lastly they take away you're right to vote so you become literally an invisible member of society as far as politicians are concerned. But hey drugs are bad, and anyone who does drugs is bad /s.
- blairanderson 8y agoi was surprised that its only 500-ish people.
- loeg 8y agoHere's an earlier source: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-court-agrees-to-vacate-misdemeanor-marijuana-convictions-prosecuted-before-legalization/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-c... And the writing has been on the wall from about April: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-asks-court-to-dismiss-marijuana-convictions-from-before-legalization/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-a...