We just keep doing it every day. We continue to do this every day .”
By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent
Missouri circuit courts cleared more than 100,000 marijuana-related charges from criminal records. This was a major selling feature for those who voted in favor of the constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana by 2022.
Court officials claim that it is difficult to know how many charges remain because so many court records have not been digitized.
Missouri court officials will request an additional $3.7 million in order to complete marijuana expungements for the upcoming budget year. They made their case to a House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday.
According to law, all revenue collected by the state from recreational marijuana taxes, as well as the fees paid by businesses, must be used first for the costs of the program. It then goes to court expenses for expunging marijuana crimes from criminal records.
The lawmakers approved $4.5 million last year for state courts so they could pay overtime to their employees or hire temp workers in order to complete the huge number of expungements that were required by law. On May 5, they approved $2.5 million more in a budget supplemental.
Circuit courts are required to request reimbursement of their expungement expenses from the Circuit Court Budget Committee which oversees this special assistance program.
Beth Riggert is the communications counsel for the Missouri Supreme Court. She said that the committee has so far given $4.2 millions to county courts. She said that the committee had allocated funds to any circuit courts who requested them.
Riggert stated that some circuit courts had not requested funds for special assistance, because they didn’t have court clerks who were willing to work overtime. “Or they couldn’t find individuals qualified to provide special assistance, because the required analysis is complex and best done by experienced personnel such as retired clerks.”
Missouri courts granted 103 558 expungements as of January 2. Greene County, out of all counties, has received nearly $940,000 and completed the most expungements with 4,306.
The counties with the highest number of expungements after Greene are not necessarily those that have the most money or have the largest population.
Laclede County has the second highest number at 3,515. It is a county with a population around 36,000. The county received just over $35,000 through the special assistance program.
St. Louis County is third, with over a million residents, and court officials processed 3,479 expungements. Just over $135,000 has been received by the county. A spokesman from the 21st Circuit Court stated that 11,300 documents have been reviewed by the court.
Franklin County with a population 104,000 is the fourth county, having completed 3,200 expungements. It received about $53,000. Franklin County is only a few hundred people ahead of Jackson County. Jackson County has received almost $195,000 and completed 2,900 homes.
What is the status of the courts?
Greene County Circuit clerk Bryan Feemster says he hired four retired experienced clerks to work on expungements part-time in February. “They hit the ground running,” he said. Their work was guided by a pre-screened list of cases, compiled and maintained by the Office of State court Administrator.
The office looked up several criminal charges codes that could potentially involve marijuana, and then provided this list to the court. He said that the clerks should read each case in detail.
He said that you should look at each count to see if it was marijuana-related or not.
Feemster provides timesheets, supporting documents and payroll payments to the office.
He has hired two additional people to help with the heavy lifting and sorting of thousands of files. The state cannot pre-screen them. Six clerks work exclusively on expungements.
He said, “They do nothing else.”
During the 2022 campaign in support of the recreational marijuana ballot measure, supporters touted “automatic expungements”–meaning people who have already served their sentences for past charges don’t have to petition the court and go through a hearing to expunge those charges from their records.
The courts will have to locate the records of their previous marijuana charges and pretend that they never happened.
Court clerks, however, say that the process is not automatic. The process is labor-intensive and requires a person with legal knowledge to go through the court files.
Feemster says that this is especially true for paper records because they are all manually operated.
He said: “We’re looking at every criminal record dating back to 1989, trying to see if there are any that could qualify.” It is very tedious and slow, as you can imagine.
Feemster recruited a group of retired Greene County clerks, but other county clerks report that they have an extra person or two to help complete the task.
Marcy Anderson, who was appointed as Johnson County’s Circuit Clerk in July, inherited the expungement job. She said that a retired court clerk and a judge come as often as possible to assist her, on top of what the regular team can do.
Anderson stated, “I’ve not done any research to determine how far we are.” “We continue to do this every day.”
Johnson County, with a population around 54,000 people, has seen her team complete 529 expungements. As of January 2, they received nearly $18,000 through the special assistance program.
Her office is working, along with every county in the state, on a massive redaction project, which is required to allow people to access court records through CaseNet.
She needs more money and people to help her with the redacting process and expungement.
Valerie Hartman is the spokeswoman of the 16th Judicial Circuit Court. She said that in Jackson County, court staff have reviewed over 20,000 files, which include both misdemeanor and felony drug charges. Nearly 3,000 charges have been expunged by the court.
She said that some of the cases she reviewed involved marijuana, but most did not.
She said that the court used data from the Missouri Corrections Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol and Office of State Courts administrator to review cases between 1989 and 2022. The review included all files that had drug charges.
Hartman stated that the court is now researching how to access older criminal databases in order to identify additional paper files and to review them.
She said that she had no idea how many more drug cases awaited our review.
This article was originally published by Missouri Independent.
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Photo by Mike Latimer.
The post Missouri Courts Request $3.7 Million to Continue Expunging Past Marijuana Convictions first appeared on Marijuana Moment.
