One year since marijuana legalization and expungement efforts are still underway

CATHY WURZER: Did you know we are approaching the one year anniversary of the legalization of recreational marijuana in Minnesota? On top of businesses readying themselves to sell marijuana, the state cannabis review board has been looking at who is eligible to have marijuana-related criminal indictments expunged from their record. It's a process that will change the lives of hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans with criminal records.

Jon Geffen has been working to expunge marijuana charges from Minnesotans records. He's the director of the Legal Revolution Law Firm based in Minneapolis. Jon, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

JON GEFFEN: Yeah. Thanks so much, Cathy, for having me.

CATHY WURZER: So as I mentioned, August 1 is going to mark one year since recreational marijuana use was legalized in Minnesota. And I know you've done a lot of work here when it comes to expungement of records. How big a year has this been for folks with marijuana charges on their records?

JON GEFFEN: Yeah, it's been a great year, but we're still a little bit in a holding pattern. Although cannabis was legalized for adult use a year ago, as you said, a lot of people haven't received the full benefit of those legal changes, specifically in the expungement realm. We're really waiting for probably the end of 2024 to start seeing some of those felony cases fall off.

And those numbers are really high. Minnesota had up to 200,000 cases that might be eligible for an expungement. And so far, the state has expunged some records, specifically 57,000 of them. But those were the lower level ones, those petty misdemeanor tickets for small amount of cannabis and small amount of cannabis in a vehicle. So we're not there yet.

CATHY WURZER: I'm wondering-- I understand that expungement, the process is pretty complicated. And probably that's what has added to the length of time that you're spending here. Why is it so tricky to get someone's record expunged?

JON GEFFEN: Yeah, I mean, expungement has always been difficult. Part of the reason it's difficult is how data works. I mean, if you think about a police agency arresting, a county or city attorney prosecuting, then that data flows to other entities, like the BCA, the Department of Human Services. So how do you grab it all back?

And people talk about genie in the bottle and so on. But it's hard to bring them all back, and it requires a lot of thought and investigation into who might even have those records so you can give a person a meaningful remedy. So it's a hard process. But I mean, we're in a really amazing time. Historically, Minnesota's expunged somewhere around 2,000 to 2,500 cases a year. So small numbers.

And as I said before, we saw 57,000 cases get expunged in May of 2024. And we're going to see huge amount of felony cases coming off. So the numbers are so huge. And this is a free process that's going on. The new Cannabis Expungement Board is doing-- it's not something you pay for expungements, even if you don't have an attorney or $305 a pop, unless you got a fee waiver from the court.

So this is exciting. I mean, we're going to finally see mass expungement, and expungement that applies to everybody, not just certain groups of people who have the money to pay an attorney to do it.

CATHY WURZER: And who's helping with the expungement process? And I asked that question because I was just slightly surprised to talk to a person who is counsel at a major business here in the Twin Cities, and she's doing pro bono work on behalf of the expungement process. Are you going and asking attorneys from around the state to help out?

JON GEFFEN: So no, I'm not on the Cannabis Expungement Board. I'm an attorney kind of-- I mean, there are so many ways to actually seek an expungement. You can do it yourself through the petition process, like the old days. You file a petition, you go to court, you have your day in court.

Our attorney general's office has an amazing program that you can apply for at helpsealmyrecord.org, where they will try to get it expunged for you. You won't have to pay the filing fee. You don't have to even appear in court. And now we have this additional sort of state-run expungement process. So we have everybody working at this problem from different angles. But by far, the most exciting one is the state-initiated expungement project through the Cannabis Expungement Board.

CATHY WURZER: So once the cannabis review board has found someone's eligible, that's where you come in, is that correct?

JON GEFFEN: No.

CATHY WURZER: No.

JON GEFFEN: We are sort of still circling the periphery and hoping and providing assistance to make sure that it gets done in a way that's helpful to everybody. I mean, the way the process works right now is the BCA, which is the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which is the hub of all criminal records in Minnesota, they had to identify the records that would fit what is now legal.

Like, if you had less than 2 pounds of marijuana 10 years ago, well, that's no longer a crime. So they were tasked with finding those cases. Then they need to shift those cases from their agency to this Cannabis Expungement Board. They analyze the cases, and the ones they believe are eligible will then move to the judicial branch for an order to issue, which then has to include all the agencies that might have that record. That's sort of that unringing the bell and getting it back.

So you have multiple agencies working together, dealing with huge amounts of information. So that's why this is taking so long is it's just a lot.

CATHY WURZER: It is a lot. By the way, can you explain to folks why is it important to get these records cleaned up, to get them expunged? If someone has a-- I don't know-- was cited for marijuana possession, what, 25, 30 years ago, why is it important to get that cleared from their record?

JON GEFFEN: It's a great question. And it's so important because that data in Minnesota is public. And data is public, you go for that job or that housing that you want. And they ask you to sign so they can look at your background check, they find it. And then in Minnesota, you can disqualify based on the existence of a criminal record no matter how old it is.

And oftentimes people don't even know. They think that happened so long ago. Well, it's there. People can see it and people use it. If you think about employers, landlords that have zero tolerance for drug cases, you're not getting that job. You're not getting that apartment. And it really has no indication of your safety, no indication of that you're not a good tenant, employee, person. So cleaning up these records is so huge.

And we know from data that Black and Brown bodies, certain communities are overpoliced, overcharged with these offenses. And the access to the expungement was based on wealth. So even the people that could get relief in the past were not the ones probably most impacted by the existence of this kind of ridiculous war on drugs that we had for decades.

CATHY WURZER: Well, I appreciate your time here, Jon. It sounds like you've got a lot of work left to do. It's pretty interesting stuff. Thank you so much.

JON GEFFEN: Thank you, Cathy. Appreciate it.

CATHY WURZER: Jon Geffen has been with us. He's the director of the Legal Revolution law firm in Minneapolis.