After the House and Senate committees of Rhode Island approved legislation legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, the governor signed the bill into law. Fortunately, the bill will ultimately benefit tens of thousands of people with past marijuana convictions. The legislation will erase any prior civil violation, misdemeanor, or felony conviction for the possession of marijuana from court records. Looking at decades of past marijuana violations in their computer systems, the courts found 27,000 cases that would be eligible for expunction.
However, the bill is going to pose some challenges for the court record system. Some cases are going to be easier to expunge than others depending on the severity. For example, civil violations – where a person was in possession of one ounce or less – will be easier to remove than cases where possession was part of a case involving other charges. The challenge with these cases is that they will need to have the charges extracted through an electronic computer search. And if the charge was done before electronic fillings, then court officials will need to go through the paper files by hand.
Given the task at hand, court officials are asking for the time and money to be able to complete the expunctions. The legislation will give the courts until July 2024 to provide automatic expungements to those eligible and expedite those looking to have them expunged earlier. In addition, Gov. McKee has added $340,000 to his budget proposal to help the system. The funds would help cover overtime pay for court workers and hiring a contract worker to manage the expungements. The funds are to be sourced from future marijuana sales.
Are your criminal charges preventing you from receiving employment? Not sure if your case would be eligible for expunction? Then contact Easy Expunctions! We provide easy and affordable expunctions that will get you to your goals. Visit EasyExpunctions.com or call (866) 775-9989 to learn more.