We’ve been waiting for this.
Kim Ogg
The Harris County district attorney’s plan to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana drew reactions swift and strong Thursday from both sides of the debate.
District Attorney Kim Ogg made the announced Thursday backed by a bevy of local officials, including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis.
“The sky will not fall,” Acevedo said as he voiced his support. “There are already critics out there. We’ve been down this path before with my old department. Rather than see an uptick in crime, in the city of Austin we reduced violent crime between 2007 and 2014 by 40 percent.”
Bellaire Police Chief Byron Holloway, however, said the program seems similar to a program former District Attorney Devon Anderson put into place.
“At first blush, I’m not seeing a difference,” he said. “This is basically giving deferred adjudication up front.”
Yes, that’s my impression as well. This earlier story gives the details.
The policy, set to begin March 1, means that misdemeanor offenders with less than four ounces of marijuana will not be arrested, ticketed or required to appear in court if they agree to take a four-hour drug education class, officials said.
Ogg said the county has spent $25 million a year for the past 10 years locking up people for having less than 4 ounces of marijuana. She said those resources would be better spent arresting serious criminals such as burglars, robbers and rapists.
“We have spent in excess of $250 million, over a quarter-billion dollars, prosecuting a crime that has produced no tangible evidence of improved public safety,” she said. “We have disqualified, unnecessarily, thousands of people from greater job, housing and educational opportunities by giving them a criminal record for what is, in effect, a minor law violation.”
Officials have said it could divert an estimated 12,000 people a year out of the criminal justice system and would save officers hours of processing time now spent on low-level cases. More than 107,000 cases of misdemeanor marijuana cases have been handled in the past 10 years, officials said.
Since there is no arrest, there is no arrest record. Since there is no court date, there are no court documents connected to the encounter. The plan calls for officers to seize the marijuana and drop it off at a police station at the end of their shift, along with a record of the encounter in case the suspect does not take the class.
“You do not get charged with anything,” Assistant District Attorney David Mitcham, who heads the DA’s trial bureau, said Wednesday. “You have a pathway where you can avoid going to court.”
[…]
At the sheriff’s office, the new policy will save up to 12 hours of processing time per month for as many as 1,000 suspects, a move that will ease the workload on administrators and jailers who transfer and process inmates, officials said.
“We’re really encouraged by these swift actions by the district attorney,” said sheriff’s spokesman Ryan Sullivan. “And we are looking forward to working with Harris County’s criminal justice leadership identifying common-sense solutions to our broken criminal justice system.”
Sullivan said the move would likely not affect the jail population significantly, since most misdemeanor marijuana offenders move quickly in and out of jail. On Wednesday, just 12 people were jailed on misdemeanor marijuana offenses and unable to make bail, he said.
Elected district attorneys are given wide latitude in their discretion about how to enforce laws in their jurisdictions. Diversion programs, such as drug courts, have been widely used across Texas, and Austin has launched a “cite and release” program in which low-level drug offenders are given tickets and required to appear in court.
Under the new local program, police would identify a suspect to make sure they do not have warrants or other legal issues, then would offer them the option of taking the drug education class. If the suspect takes the class, the drugs are destroyed and the agreement is filed away.
A suspect would be able to take the class over and over again regardless of past criminal history, officials said.
The new program will keep police on the streets longer each day and reduce costs for lab testing of the drugs, Mitcham said.
If the suspect does not take the class, the contraband will be tested, and prosecutors will file charges and issue an arrest warrant. Offenders could then face up to one year in jail if convicted of the Class A misdemeanor.
The model to think about here is traffic tickets – speeding, running a stop sign, that sort of thing. You get a ticket instead of getting arrested (generally speaking, of course), and you have various options for disposing of the ticket without it appearing on your record. As with speeding tickets but unlike the program put in place by former DA Devon Anderson, you can get a do-over if you get cited again. Given all the strains on the jail lately, keeping some number of mostly harmless potheads out of jail, while keeping cops on the street instead of hauling said potheads downtown for booking, sure seems like a win to me.
As for Montgomery County DA Brett Ligon, whose press release is here, last I checked Montgomery County was not part of Harris County. State law allows for police departments to write citations for low-level drug busts instead of making arrests, and prosecutors have a lot of discretion in how they handle criminal charges. He’s as free to do his thing as Kim Ogg is to do hers, as long as the voters approve. Well, as long as the Lege approves as well, which given that Dan Patrick is having the vapors over this, could change. As we are seeing with many things, the Dan Patricks are out of step with the mainstream. It may take awhile, but that will catch up to them eventually. The Press and Grits for Breakfast have more.
I’m curious how this works when an otherwise law abiding person is stopped and has both a gun and pot in the car. It’s my understanding that having illegal drugs, combined with a gun, makes an otherwise legal gun, illegal. Is that true? What happens in a case like that?
I’m actually OK with the new pot policy, but I wonder, who gets the contracts to run the 4 hour classes? Will there be a transparent bid process for that?
Also, what happens when someone is caught with pot that cannot be identified, i.e. a potential illegal alien? Will that person be arrested so the police can find out exactly who that person is? If you stop me and write me a “not really, but sort of, a ticket,” and you don’t know who I am, what are the chances I will voluntarily pay for and take a class?
I am o.k. with the policy also. I am looking forward to all the new business. Think about all the stops that are made where cops find pot and just let the “pot heads go”. Now they get a ticket. Good for me.
Also look at this scenario….”Pot heads” throw a pot party. Everyone drives to one guys house because he will have all the weed. Neighbors don’t like inhaling the second hand pot and they call the cops. Cops come in and fix the problem by writing them tickets. Cops leave. “Pot heads leave” in their cars. “Pot heads” have wrecks, kill people, get charged with dui’s, negligent homicide, manslaughter, etc. I have more business.
I love it.
@Paul:
I doubt there will be an uptick in stoners out driving while high because of this new (un)enforcement initiative. Of course, since most of the time in Houston traffic you can’t drive faster than 10mph on the freeway anyway, it will be hard to tell if there are more people driving while high than usual. LOL!