Columbia, MO: A recent state Supreme Court decision restricts which marijuana-related offenses are eligible for expungement under Missouri’s voter-approved law.
Voters in 2022 passed a ballot initiative legalizing the adult-use marijuana market and mandating courts to review and expunge a broad range of cannabis-related convictions, including felony convictions. Since then, courts have expunged over 140,000 marijuana-related convictions.
However, a recently issued Supreme Court opinion (C.S. v. Missouri State Highway Patrol, et al., SC 100944) finds that only those with convictions involving three ounces of cannabis or less are eligible for expungement relief under the law.
Missouri NORML Coordinator Dan Viets, who helped draft the initiative’s expungement provisions, said that the Court’s new, narrow interpretation violates the intent of the voter-approved law.
“The Missouri Supreme Court majority is clearly substituting its personal preferences for the will of the voters as expressed in the plain language of the initiative,” Viets stated in a press release. “This decision is an example of the Court engaging in an extreme form of judicial activism. It is clearly abusing its authority by ignoring the expressed intent of the voters.”
Viets added, however, that many marijuana-related felony convictions have already been expunged and that he does not believe “those are going to be undone” by this decision.
“The effect is primarily going to be those cases from the 20th century, from before 2000, when most records were on paper,” Viets said. “And those cases still need to be examined, and those cases which are eligible under this new definition still need to be expunged.”
Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws providing explicit pathways to either expunge (or otherwise set aside) the records of those with low-level marijuana convictions. According to publicly available data compiled by NORML, state and local officials have issued over 100,000 pardons and more than 2.3 million marijuana-related expungements since 2018.
Additional information is available from Missouri NORML.