The district attorney of Los Angeles announced on Monday that almost 50,000 people who have been convicted of marijuana-related offenses will have their convictions erased or reduced.
Los Angeles County and Code for America, will identify decades-old court cases that it would otherwise have been unable to find.
By partnering with Code for America, Los Angeles will be able to remove marijuana convictions altogether or reduce felony sentences to misdemeanors.
“This collaboration will improve people’s lives by erasing the mistakes of their past and hopefully lead them on a path to a better future. Helping to clear that path by reducing or dismissing cannabis convictions can result in someone securing a job or benefiting from other programs that may have been unavailable to them in the past,” L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey stated.
The district attorney for San Joaquin County, Tori Verber Salazar has said that her county would work with Code for America also to erase nearly 4,000 marijuana-related offenses from the public record.