New Jersey courts have either dismissed or vacated an estimated 362,000 marijuana cases since July 1 and an additional 150,000 New Jersey residents may also be eligible to have their marijuana-related records automatically expunged in the near future.
These are the first of up to 360,000 cases and convictions that are eligible for vacation, dismissal and automatic expungement.
Today, 37 members of Congress, led by Congressional Cannabis Caucus co-chairs Barbara Lee and Earl Blumenauer, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, sent a letter to President Biden calling upon him to issue a blanket pardon to those with federal nonviolent marijuana offenses.
This Presidents Day, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), along with a coalition of business groups and criminal justice reform advocates, is calling upon President Joe Biden to follow through on his campaign commitment to expunge the criminal records of those with non-violent marijuana convictions.
“Statewide, Illinoisans hold hundreds of thousands of low-level cannabis-related records, a burden disproportionately shouldered by communities of color.”
Support is bipartisan, with majorities of Democrats (81 percent), Independents (69 percent), and Republicans (57 percent) endorsing the expungement of marijuana-related convictions.
“Thousands of citizens unduly carry the undue burden and stigmatization of a past conviction for behavior that is no longer considered to be a crime. Our sense of justice and our principles of fairness demand that officials move swiftly to right the past wrongs of cannabis prohibition and criminalization.”
HB 4982 explicitly permits those convicted of one or more misdemeanor marijuana offenses to file a petition with the court to have their criminal record set aside.