Governor’s Council weighs Healey’s cannabis pardon proposal
Photo | Courtesy of Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Massachusetts State House
Two of the elected officials who would vote on Gov. Maura Healey's plan to pardon convictions for simple cannabis possession expressed their support Tuesday, a day before the governor is set to provide details of her proposal at a State House news conference.
Healey, the state's former top prosecutor who once joined Gov. Charlie Baker in opposing the legalization of adult-use cannabis, pledged on the gubernatorial campaign trail in 2022 that she would move to pardon those convicted of simple possession in state courts.
Press secretary Karissa Hand said Tuesday that Healey would "follow President Biden's lead and pardon simple marijuana possession convictions at the state level," but declined to discuss further details ahead of Wednesday's 10 a.m. press conference.
The elected Governor's Council has final approval over any clemency recommended by the governor. In interviews Tuesday, Councilor Paul DePalo of Worcester said he was "100 percent supportive" of Healey's move, and Councilor Eileen Duff called the action "long overdue."
"I think it's going to help some people get their lives back on track. And frankly, you can go into a shop and buy it legally now, so it just seems kind of silly that these folks have these offenses that are not -- they're not serving any purpose anymore, let me put it that way," Duff said.
But Councilor Joseph Ferreira, a former police chief, said he still had "a lot of questions" and needed further investigation into potential "unknown ramifications" -- like ones that could pop up if the simple possession charge was coupled with another offense, or was a predicate offense to seek a greater sentence.
"I think we need to do vetting and research, and find out the full ramifications of it all, before we make an informed decision," the Swansea Democrat said.
Ferreira advised the governor's office to "run it by various police organizations" such as the Mass. Chiefs of Police Association, he said, because "sometimes, a conviction of possession is really not what the true facts were."
"Sometimes, somebody's charged with distributing marijuana and they could be a sizeable dealer, but for whatever reason, the prosecution drops it down to mere possession," he said. He added, "Before the law was changed in Massachusetts, the smell of marijuana gave you the ability to search the entire car, and sometimes you uncovered huge felonies. So I'm not sure how that plays out."
Duff said there could be "some councilors that would like to see every single name and research every single case, or it could just be a blanket."
DePalo said he was "curious how far this thing is going to go, and whether we overlap with things that happened in school zones, or how it's interacting with intent to distribute."
All three councilors said the Healey administration had reached out to them ahead of time for input on the idea's development.
President Joseph Biden issued his pardon proclamation in 2022, granting unconditional forgiveness to U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents for federal convictions of simple marijuana possession. At the time, he said he was "urging all Governors to do the same with regard to state offenses."
"Just as no one should be in a Federal prison solely due to the possession of marijuana, no one should be in a local jail or state prison for that reason, either," Biden said in his October 2022 statement.
The move for a blanket pardon has emerged as not just a plank in the platform of cannabis activists, but as a priority of equity and restorative justice advocates, too.
The American Civil Liberties Union has pushed for all governors to answer Biden's call, writing on its website that "failed policies of the War on Drugs -- including harsh sentences, overcriminalization, and surveillance of Black and Brown communities -- have perpetuated racial disparities in the criminal legal system and contributed to mass incarceration for decades."
A criminal record can hinder a person's job prospects or participation in some volunteer activities.
"We don't want to put up any more barriers to people working that want to work. God knows, we need workers," Duff said.
Referencing a disproportionate impact on certain communities or racial groups, DePalo gave a hypothetical example from his hometown of Worcester: "the difference between a kid smoking pot up on the hill at [College of the] Holy Cross and doing it down in the Main South neighborhood."
"And those two kids often had different experiences, and if they interacted with law enforcement over marijuana, it probably led to different life trajectories, as well," he said. DePalo added, "Let me put it this way. We know that marijuana usage has been prevalent among our population for quite a long time, especially among college-age kids. But when college public safety officers catch kids smoking pot, they're unlikely to get arrested. And if you don't have the protection of that kind of environment around you, then things can go very differently."
Among those scheduled to join Healey on the Grand Staircase for her 10 a.m. Wednesday announcement are Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy and Senate President Karen Spilka.
"I'm elated to see the Governor pardon thousands of people who were convicted for doing something that is legal today," Spilka said in a statement to the News Service. "It's the right thing to do, and builds on our efforts in the legislature to expand and expedite expungement."
A schedule conflict will prevent House Speaker Ronald Mariano from attending, his office said, though the speaker piled on his support in a statement.
"The decision from Governor Healey to pardon certain marijuana convictions is the right one, as it is another step towards rectifying decades of injustices stemming from the criminalization of cannabis," Mariano told the News Service. "This announcement is consistent with the Legislature's intent during the passage of the 2018 criminal justice reform law, which was updated in 2022 when the Legislature passed further cannabis reforms, that allowed residents to seek expungements for convictions that are no longer crimes following voter-approved reforms."
Mariano helped craft the final version of the 2018 criminal justice reforms package, a year after co-chairing the Legislature's rewrite of the voter-approved cannabis legalization law.
A few months before he left office in 2022, Gov. Charlie Baker said he viewed the expungement avenue -- without a formal pardon -- as the "fastest, easiest and quickest way" for people to deal with their simple possession convictions.
"Anyone in Massachusetts who wants to expunge their record appropriately can do so now under existing state law. The pardon process is a complicated one. It doesn't happen overnight. I think at this point the fastest, easiest and quickest way for somebody to deal with an issue around simple possession would be to just pursue the expungement process. It's why it's there," the Republican governor said at the time.
Duff, a Gloucester Democrat, said Tuesday that she felt a "blanket pardon" was the "only way to do this."
"Expungement would just take forever and our courts are all bogged down anyways. So I think it's a great idea," she said.
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