Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s (D) State of the State speech on Wednesday highlighted legislation that will expand the opportunities to expunge criminal records related to marijuana. It would also allow those who have violated the terms of probation or parole to apply to the courts for an expungement.
Moore’s support of the proposal was based on his pardoning last year more than 175,000 people convicted for cannabis-related and paraphernalia crimes.
This year we will focus on tackling the myth that all sentences should be considered life sentences, said the Governor. “I have therefore introduced legislation in this session that builds upon the landmark cannabis pardons which I passed into law the previous year. It was the biggest state pardon ever granted in American history.”
The new law, said the senator, would allow individuals to expunge their record if they violate parole or probation.
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.
The proposed proposal requires that individuals complete their sentences and wait, based on the nature, a specified number of year.
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.”
Moore cited Rev. Carlos Battle, a pastor at the New Shiloh Baptist Church and a volunteer with a non-profit that matches young men to mentors, spoke in support of Moore’s proposal.
Battle, according to the governor, violated the probation conditions in the early 2000s due to a heroin and cocaine addiction.
“Under current Maryland law,” Moore said, “Carlos can never have his record wiped clean—ever. The bill we propose would allow him to petition for an expungement. This way, every time Carlos applied for a loan or job, his past decisions wouldn’t be a constant shadow.
Moore, in his comments last August regarding the pardons he issued for cannabis users on a mass scale, said that this action went beyond addressing public policy issues. He said that as someone who had grown up in a criminal justice system and was a patient of medical cannabis, the relief he received has impacted his personal psychology.
He stated that this was important because “I want people to get a chance to participate in an economy.” And also, he did not “understand how we punish people for things that are no longer illegal in the state I live in.”
At the time the Governor said, “It was because I am tired of hearing about how people have struggled to find employment and other issues as a result of decades of convictions on minor marijuana charges.”
Moore, then 11, said that he had been arrested by the police for tagging while in New York City. The boy was later released with no criminal record. Moore described this as “a blessing” knowing what he knows now about the consequences that come from kids being caught in a system of juvenile justice and how problematic it can be to have any kind of contact with criminal justice.
You realize that sometimes, the small choices we make can have an enormous impact on our lives. In many instances, decisions are made before the thoughts and feelings about them have been fully processed. “It was both a pivotal moment and a lesson that I had to learn.”
Moore has also spoken about federal reforms last year, saying that he’ll continue to advocate “a sane, standard policy” at the federal government level. This includes reforms in banking to give small cannabis companies access to capital.
“What we are doing in Maryland is revolutionary,” said he. However, “there are areas of this nation that are far behind and rely on federal law.”
Moore, along with the President of the NAACP in the past year, also promoted a historic pardon of marijuana for all. The two men said that this would help people who have been criminalized to unlock their economic potential. The governor stressed that it was important to inform pardonees about the next steps, especially those whose records were not automatically expunged.
Last year, the Biden Administration and other officials such as Colorado Governor Jared Polis praised Moore’s pardons. Jared Polis, a Democrat.
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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