Maryland Governor Pushes To Build On Mass Marijuana Pardons Through Bill To Expand Expungement Eligibility

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) touted legislation in his State of the State address on Wednesday that would expand opportunities for people to have their criminal records for marijuana expunged, allowing people who violated terms of their parole or probation to petition courts to erase those records.

In expressing support for the proposal, Moore referenced his mass pardon last year of more than 175,000 convictions around cannabis and paraphernalia offenses.

“A cornerstone of our effort this year will be helping ensure that we confront this myth that every single sentence needs to be treated like a life sentence,” the governor said, “and that is why this session I have introduced legislation to build on the historic cannabis pardons that I signed into law last year, the largest state pardon in our nation’s history.”

“Our new bill,” he continued, “would expand eligibility for expungement by allowing individuals who violate their parole or probation to petition to have their records wiped clean.”

The legislation Moore referenced—companion bills SB 432 and HB 499, introduced late last month at the request of his administration—would expand the range of offenses eligible for expungement and remove a requirement that people satisfy “parole, probation, or mandatory supervision” before petitioning a court to expunge their criminal records.

Instead, the proposal would require only that people complete the sentence and wait a certain number of years, depending on the nature of the conviction.

Further, for people who were included in Moore’s mass marijuana pardon, the measures would specify that the Maryland Judiciary Case Search—a public database of court records—”may not in any way refer to the existence of records of a charge of possession of cannabis in a case with electronic records if the charge resulted in a conviction that was later pardoned by the governor.”

In support of the proposal, Moore in his speech referenced Rev. Carlos Battle of the New Shiloh Baptist Church, who’s also a member of a nonprofit that connects young men with mentorships.

In the early 2000s, the governor said, Battle violated his probation terms as the result of a substance use disorder involving heroin and cocaine.

“Under current Maryland law,” Moore said, “Carlos can never have his record wiped clean—ever. Our bill would change that so that he can petition for expungement, so every time Carlos applies for a job or a home loan, he doesn’t constantly have to be shadowed by a decision that he made decades ago.”

In comments about his mass cannabis pardons, Moore said last August that the action was about more than addressing the public policy consequences of criminalization. As someone who was exposed to the criminal legal system at an early age, and having been a medical cannabis patient himself, he said there’s an important personal psychological impact of attaining that relief.

He explained that the move was “important because I want people to be able to better enter into an economy” and also because he “did not understand how we continue to punish people for something that’s no longer illegal in my state.”

“I did it because you cannot talk about the benefits of legalization if you don’t deal with the consequences of criminalization,” the governor said at the time, adding that he was “tired of hearing stories” about people who’ve struggled with issues such as employment due to decades-long convictions for minor marijuana offenses.

When he was 11 years old, Moore said he was picked up by police after being caught tagging in New York City. He was eventually released without getting a criminal record, which he described as a “blessing” given what he now knows about the “consequences of kids getting caught up in a juvenile justice system” and “how problematic it is having any any contact with the criminal justice system.”

“You just realize how sometimes it’s these small decisions that we make that can have a huge impact on what type of life we have the opportunity to live. And in many cases, you’re making those decisions before you’re even fully processing how you think about these things,” he said. “So it was an important moment in my life and an important lesson learned for me too.”

Moore also spoke last year about reforms at the federal level, saying that as the state works to build upon its marijuana legalization law, he will continue to “advocate for a sane and a standard federal policy,” including banking reform so that small cannabis businesses have access to capital.

What we’re doing state of Maryland is revolutionary,” he said. But “there are parts of this country that are behind us and on federal law.”

Moore and the president of the NAACP last year also promoted the historic mass marijuana pardon, which they said would unlock the economic potential of people targeted by criminalization. But the governor also stressed the need to get the word out about next steps for the majority of pardon recipients whose records weren’t automatically expunged by his clemency move.

Moore’s pardons also gained praise from the Biden administration last year as well as other officials, such as Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D).

Aside from cannabis, the governor last May also signed a pair of bills into law to establish a psychedelics task force that will study legal access to substances like psilocybin and DMT.

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