South Dakota Governor Noem Vetoes Marijuana Expungement Bill, Calls It 'Bad Precedent' For Criminal Justice

In February the South Dakota Senate approved bills to legalize and tax marijuana as well as provide for expungement for low-level cannabis offenses. About a month later, Governor Kristi Noem used her veto to push the expungement legislation back to the Senate. 

The move comes on the heels of Noem signing legislation into law allowing qualified patients to home grow limited quantities of marijuana.

“This bill provides for automatic removal from a public background check for Class 1 misdemeanors related to the use or possession of marijuana or any of its derivatives,” Noem wrote an official statement. “It also essentially codifies a convicted person’s ability to be dishonest about their previous arrest and conviction by not requiring disclosure of the prior drug conviction.

“This bill is also retroactive, which is bad precedent for criminal justice issues where fairness is paramount,” Noem continued. “Further, even with the legalization of medical cannabis, there must remain consequences for using illegal drugs at a time when the use and possession of marijuana, even for alleged medical purposes, was illegal.”

What’s next? 

The decision is going back to the chambers where members have one day to review the Governor’s veto and decide if they will uphold it or overturn it.

Cannabis In South Dakota 

In November 2021, South Dakota voters approved an initiative to legalize recreational cannabis. Unfortunately, the state’s Supreme Court decided to kill it.

One of five states to vote on a cannabis initiative in the Nov. 2020 elections, South Dakota managed to garner some 54% support for legalization, however, the measure was declared unconstitutional.

Why?

According to Circuit Judge Christina Klinger’s ruling in February, the initiative violates the requirement that constitutional amendments can deal with just one subject. Gov. Noem challenged the amendment and ordered a lawsuit to overturn the adult-use portion of the ballot results in January.

“Amendment A is a revision as it has far-reaching effects on the basic nature of South Dakota’s governmental system,” Klinger, who was appointed as a circuit court judge by Noem in 2019, wrote in her ruling.

“The voters of South Dakota have shown their support for comprehensive reform by voting to create regulated medical and adult-use markets, regardless of adult-use being struck down by a judge,” Jax James, NORML’s State Policy Manager said. “Despite the will of the voters, South Dakotans will continue to be saddled with the collateral consequences of a marijuana possession conviction. People with otherwise clean records do not deserve for the rest of their lives to be derailed because of a marijuana conviction, especially since some of these convictions are likely due to medical usage before there was an established program, which is still in the process of being fully implemented.“