Under California Health & Safety Code § 11361.5, minor marijuana arrests and convictions are supposed to be sealed and destroyed by the court and other agencies after 2 years of the arrest without a conviction or 2 years after the conviction. California Health & Safety Code § 11361.7 tracks § 11361.5 and states that such records "shall not be considered to be accurate, relevant, timely, or complete for any purposes." This is as good as it gets when it comes to "expungement" of conviction records in California--with the possible exception of deferred entry of judgment.
As a way of reducing court costs, however, a proposal is being made to remove infraction marijuana convictions (under California Health & Safety Code § 11357(b)) from the protection of these laws, thereby allegedly “saving” the Court’s staff from having to spend time locating and destroying these infractions for simple possession. And it's done via a trailer bill to the next year's budget. See attached. Of course, one can easily cut even more costs by de-criminalizing possession of a small quantity of marijuana in the first place. <sarcasm>But, no, that obviously is not the right thing to do.</sarcasm>
As a way of reducing court costs, however, a proposal is being made to remove infraction marijuana convictions (under California Health & Safety Code § 11357(b)) from the protection of these laws, thereby allegedly “saving” the Court’s staff from having to spend time locating and destroying these infractions for simple possession. And it's done via a trailer bill to the next year's budget. See attached. Of course, one can easily cut even more costs by de-criminalizing possession of a small quantity of marijuana in the first place. <sarcasm>But, no, that obviously is not the right thing to do.</sarcasm>
| govbudgleganbud2013_2014.pdf |
RSS Feed