The governor of New Mexico has approved a bill to fulfill a key goal of the state’s marijuana legalization law by facilitating automatic expungements for prior cannabis convictions.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) signed the legislation from Reps. Andrea Romero (D) and Javier Martínez (D) late last week.
While the legislature did include automatic expungements and resentencing provisions in the state’s 2021 legalization law, the courts have experienced technical issues with processing certain cases.
The now-signed bill seeks to resolve those problems by allowing people to verify the status of their expungement and request expedited processing for charges that have yet to be handled by the courts.
“If an arrest or conviction involved cannabis and non-cannabis charges, a person may request expungement of eligible cannabis charges” through an administrative procedure that the courts would be required to develop under the legislation, the text says.
“The passage of HB 314 reflects that New Mexico’s priorities post-legalization are not just about collecting taxes, but also fulfilling the state’s commitment to ameliorate the harm caused by the prohibition of cannabis,” Gracie Johnson, policy director at the Last Prisoner Project (LPP), which worked on the legislation, told Marijuana Moment on Thursday.
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