NEW YORK — Over 300 low-level cannabis possession convictions are getting sealed after prosecutors and defense lawyers worked together to ask a New York City court to do so.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, the Legal Action Center and other groups announced the development Monday.

The ruling involves about 360 people convicted of New York’s lowest-level marijuana misdemeanor. All had no other New York misdemeanor or felony convictions or ongoing criminal cases.

New York prosecutors and lawmakers have made various efforts to eliminate what they see as unduly burdensome employment, housing and other consequences for people involved in small-time cannabis cases.

State legislation that takes effect on Aug. 27 softens penalties for possessing small amounts of cannabis, provides for automatically sealing low-level pot cases and outlines an expungement process for some past offenses.

In past years, New York City law enforcement authorities have arrested around 17,000 people for cannabis violations every year. Under the new state law, possession of less than one ounce of cannabis is grounds for a $50 fine but not arrest.

Rumors of the demise of New Jersey marijuana legalization may have been greatly exaggerated.  

Gov. Phil Murphy and Senate President Stephen Sweeney in recent days have said they’d be open to trying to pass a law to legalize weed in the Garden State later this year, during the “lame duck” legislative session after Election Day. 

“I think I’ve been consistent that I hoped we could have one more shot at this,” Murphy told reporters on Thursday. “Getting something to happen sooner, if we have a real shot at that, I’d be all in. … Count me all in to try and work toward that.” 

Last week, Sweeney told NJ Advance Media that he’d “make one more run” at legalizing marijuana through the legislative process. The interview came nearly three months after Sweeney announced that legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes wouldn’t “be realized at this time.”

Instead, Sweeney said he’d likely put marijuana legalization a ballot issue during the 2020 election. Since then, Illinois legislators voted to legalize weed while the drug was decriminalized in New York. 

But the activists who have pushed for marijuana legalization since even before Murphy took office have been slow to jump on board.

NPQ is constantly reminded of the critical work legal assistance organizations do, not just in aiding individuals, but through class action suits that often set the precedents we need to pursue societal justice on a more systemic basis.

A good example of this is in New York, where thousands of people are tagged with minor convictions related to cannabis in the aftermath of a misguided “drug war.” The drug war, of course, served as the lynchpin of a system of mass incarceration that led the US to have the world’s highest imprisonment rate, with an estimated 2.2 million behind bars, with people of color targeted in particular.

Now, roughly 350 people convicted of misdemeanor marijuana crimes in Manhattan will have their offenses hidden from public criminal records under a new class-action settlement, Manhattan officials said.

In a class action suit that plaintiffs are hoping will become a model for the rest of the state, attorneys from nonprofit and pro-bono legal-services groups in Manhattan have, in collaboration with District Attorney Cyrus Vance, petitioned for and won a settlement that will seal the records of hundreds of people convicted on marijuana charges. While only 350 people are affected directly by this ruling, thousands more could benefit if other New York jurisdictions pursue similar action.

The change was made possible by a provision of New York’s Raise the Age Act, a package of criminal-justice reforms signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, in 2017. Under the law, people who were convicted of up to two nonviolent, low-level offenses, but had no other contact with the criminal-justice system for a decade, are eligible to petition local authorities to seal the convictions on their records, rendering them invisible to anyone except for law enforcement.

According to the Wall Street Journal, those having their records sealed as a result of this court win are mostly black and Latino men. Many remain unaware of their new rights under the state’s legislation. Writing in the Journal, reporter Ben Chapman observes that although “approximately 600,000 people across New York state are eligible for the Raise the Age program…only 1,200 have taken advantage of it so far due to a lack of awareness and difficulty executing the paperwork involved.”

One class-action representative is a 43-year-old single father, who at his request is identified solely by his first name, “Devin.” Devin believes two misdemeanor convictions for marijuana possession in Manhattan from 1997 may have kept him from getting a job working in his chosen field.

“I feel vindicated and grateful,” Devin said. “Everyone in my family had good jobs, and I’m trying to follow in their footsteps. If I can get a job with the city, I’ll be doing even better than I’m doing now.”—Ruth McCambridge

On July 29, 2019, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) signed state legislation that further decriminalizes the possession of cannabis. The bill, sponsored by Senator Jamaal Bailey (D-Bronx), was passed by the New York State Assembly just over a month before it was signed, receiving 39 to 20 votes in the State Senate and 94 to 44 votes in the State Assembly.

Cannabis was first decriminalized in New York in 1977, when the punishment for possession of about an ounce or less of cannabis was reduced from a misdemeanor and jail time to the payment of fines. Possession of cannabis in “public view” could still result in charges and arrest. In 2014, Governor Cuomo signed the Compassionate Care Act, sponsored by Senator Diane Savino (D), which legalized the prescription and use of non-smoking forms of medical marijuana for patients with serious illnesses. Under the most recent bill, the threshold for legal cannabis possession more than doubled to just over 2 ounces, and the punishments are applied in the same manner regardless of whether or not it is in public view. Additional provisions of the bill level cannabis convictions.

While some advocates of cannabis legalization see the passage of the decriminalization bill as a victory, others believe it missed the mark. The Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) and Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D-Buffalo) would have provided for the regulation and taxation of recreational use of cannabis in New York. Although supporters of the bill were able to garner enough support from the State Assembly, they couldn’t clear the hurdle in the State Senate.

Many legislators who were on the fence about legalizing cannabis expressed concerns with the potential ramifications of legalization, including road safety, use by minors, and drug treatment funding. Others disagreed about how the state should invest tax revenues earned through legalization – while some believed the proceeds should be used to reinvest in the communities that have been impacted by the state’s drug laws, others thought the funds should be invested in the state’s infrastructure. Inside sources claimed that the bill had enough votes to pass just days before the legislative session ended, but demands and requests for further amendment led to the ultimate death of the bill. Ultimately, legislators seemed to reach a “happy medium” in passing the cannabis decriminalizing bill instead.

There have been different theories about the reasons behind why the legalization bill was unable to succeed during this year’s session. Governor Cuomo thought that cannabis should have simply been added into the state budget rather than addressed separately, believing that the approach would be an easier pill for legislators to swallow. Others thought it was a mistake to wait so late in the session to attempt the legislation amendment.

Despite the potential missteps during the process, Senator Krueger and Assembly Majority Leader Peoples-Stokes confirmed that they plan to continue their efforts next year to pass a bill legalizing recreational use of cannabis in the state. According to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), the negotiations will be tense in 2020 since it will be an election year. For now, it appears that the legislator proponents of legalization have accepted the most recent loss of their battle to legalize cannabis, but apparently the war is not over…