After three months of looking through old marijuana charges, Boone County Circuit Court Clerk Christy Blakemore — along with clerks and judges around the state — has come to a realization.
There’s no quick way to wipe those records clean.
And it’s going to take a lot more money for overtime to go through the mountain of expungements in Boone County by summertime.
“It’s just tough to get much progress on it during regular working hours,” Blakemore said. “If we don’t get an additional appropriation (from the state legislature), then I would fear that a lot of us aren’t going to make the deadlines.”
A huge selling point for those who voted for marijuana legalization, which appeared on the ballot in November as Amendment 3, was the automatic expungement provision — 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 must locate their records and make it as if their past marijuana charges never existed.
Like other clerks around the state, Blakemore’s team is trying to meet the deadlines outlined in the constitutional amendment: All marijuana-related misdemeanors must be expunged by June 8 and felonies by Dec. 8.
A small white box read Health Missouri begins legal weed sales, but there is still 'a whole lot of confusion' around expungement Steve Kraske State court authorities have asked legislators to approve $2.5 million in a supplemental budget for circuit clerks to be able to pay their employees overtime hours.
The House Budget Committee has begun work on the supplemental budget and is expected to pass it sometime after lawmakers return from spring break next week.
As they wait for the legislature to approve funding for overtime, clerks statewide have been getting “paid” in vacation time — but that’s time they won’t be able to use while the expungement deadlines are looming, Blakemore said.
In February, circuit courts were given a small amount for overtime through the Missouri Supreme Court Circuit Court Budget Committee — a group of 13 judges and clerks tasked with overseeing state court funds.
But even if legislators approve more money, most circuit courts still don’t know what they need because they’ve never done this before, said St. Louis Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer, who chairs the committee. It’s taking time for the committee to figure out how to disperse the funds.
“It’s a mammoth task,” Ohmer said. “We know it’s an issue in every county and every circuit. And so we’re just trying to slowly figure out what’s the fairest and the most equitable method to proceed.”
‘A brand new business startup’
Statewide, about 10,000 expungements have been granted — meaning charges not people — as of March 6. Clay County is leading the state with 1,340 expungements.
Boone County is at 21, though Blakemore believes their numbers should start to rise quickly now that they’re getting a workflow down.
Greene County is somewhere in the middle with 316 expungements.
Greene County Circuit Clerk Bryan Feemster described the task of digging through decades of files to find every expungeable marijuana charge as a “brand new business startup.”
“We’re making changes on the fly,” Feemster said. “But I think we’re honing in on a process that will work pretty good. It does vary by case.”
When the court budget committee surveyed the circuit courts in December to estimate the number of expungements and overtime needed, Feemster said he thought they could work through a case in about 15 minutes.
Source: kbia.org
Categories: Missouri, General