Equity In New Mexico: State Courts Ask For Help With Cannabis Expungement

Recently, the chief justice of New Mexico’s Supreme Court told lawmakers the state’s judicial branch will seek “changes during the upcoming 60-day legislative session to a 2021 law that mandates small-level cannabis convictions be expunged from criminal records.”

Chief Justice Shannon Bacon also said the burden of combing through all of the state's records for marijuana-related crimes is too much for staff to bear and wants to let people expunge their own records. "Instead of putting the onus on the judicial branch to identify and expunge cannabis-related convictions, it should be up to affected individuals to file applications for such action," she said.

“We think there’s a more straightforward and simplistic way to handle this that will take what has been an incredibly onerous process off the judiciary and put the control in the hands of the person that’s had the conviction,” Bacon said, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

New Mexico Marijuana Developments

In 2021, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill into law that automatically deletes the public records of certain low-level cannabis offenders or redacts the cannabis-related sections.

Under the expungement law, criminal convictions for trafficking or possession of large amounts of marijuana – more than 2 ounces – are not eligible to be expunged since that remains illegal under the state’s cannabis legalization law.

Expunging Criminal Cannabis Records Means Equity

Cannabis advocates affirmed that expunging criminal cannabis records is absolutely necessary to address equity, reported ABQ News.
Now that the laws have changed, advocates say "it’s time to remove the barriers that these records can place on a person’s life."

Ellie Besancon, executive director of Red Barn Growers/Green Goods, a cannabis company that helped organize two free expungement clinics in Albuquerque, said: “To have your record expunged means that you could go into a job interview and when asked, ‘Do you have a record?’ you can say with confidence, ‘I have no record.’ I think that’s important not only for expanding job opportunities but also from a psychological perspective."
Photo: Courtesy Of Scott Elkins On Unsplash