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New Mexico lawmakers made a good effort in decriminalizing cannabis with its legalization. A key part of that is expunging the criminal records of thousands of locals in New Mexico and in Alamogordo who were busted with pot before it became legal. Automatic expungement was celebrated when approved in 2021 however its not automatic for everyone.
The process had hit a slow down, and many individuals are forced to kickstart their own expungement.
Individuals can go to the New Mexico Courts website at: https://www.nmcourts.gov/criminal-record-expungement-applying-automatic…
The online form allows individuals to apply for your cannabis (marijuana) criminal records to be expunged according to the Criminal Records Expungement Act. NMSA 1978 29-3A-1 et seq.
If individuals have a case record involving cannabis, they may request that this charge be cleared.
If the case record involves charges other than cannabis related charges, they may petition the court to expunge all charges. Click here to learn more.
“We’ve already expunged 14,000 cases,” says Celina Jones, the general counsel at the Administrative Office of the Courts told KQRE News. “Where the charges were very clear that they involved cannabis or marijuana, we were able to proceed with an automated expungement.”
“We identified tens of thousands of other cases that may involve charges that are eligible for automatic expungement under the Criminal Record Expungement Act,” Jones says. The problem is that many of those records are more difficult to review.
In some instances, the records are older and not in the court’s current automated database. In other instances, cannabis charges might be mixed with other criminal offenses – and Jones from the courts says that under a new law passed this year, it’s no longer the state’s responsibility to initiate automatic expungement of those ‘mixed’ cases.
The New Mexico law clarifies that automatic expungement only applies to those ‘simple’ cases. For more complicated mixed charged cases, an individual should request review and that can be done via the state portal as a starting point.
For the more complex cases that includes other charges such as a traffic ticket in addition to just cannabis or paraphernalia possession, it’s going to be up to the individual to ask the courts to expunge thr cannabis records.
Why expungement matters. A cannabis charge, which anyone can search for free on the state’s court website, can impact an individual’s ability to get a job or even rent a home. If you believe you qualify for expungement check out the state courts website.
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