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Philadelphia to Ease Prosecution Policy on Marijuana Possession

By Jeralyn

Philadelphia is making a big change in its marijuana prosecution policy. It will no longer charge adults possessing small amounts of pot with a crime. Rather, they will be charged with a "summary offense" that carries a fine and has no effect on a criminal record.

Under a policy to take effect later this month, prosecutors will charge such cases as summary offenses rather than as misdemeanors. People arrested with up to 30 grams of the drug - slightly more than an ounce - may have to pay a fine but face no risk of a criminal record.

"We have to be smart on crime," said District Attorney Seth Williams, who took office in January. "We can't declare a war on drugs by going after the kid who's smoking a joint on 55th Street. We have to go after the large traffickers."

Two justices of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, including Justice Seamus P. McCaffery, a former homicide detective, have been working with the D.A. on the new policy. The cops aren't happy. [More...]

"We're not going stop locking people up," Lt. Frank Vanore, a police spokesman, said Friday. He said marijuana possession remained illegal.

"We're going to stop people for it. . . . Our officers are trained to do that," Vanore said. "Whether or not they make it through the charging process, that's up to the D.A. We can't control that. Until they legalize it, we're not going to stop."

The change is expected to bring in some big bucks to the city.

The new approach could generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for the Philadelphia courts. While the amount has not been formally set, fines for minor drug possession would be $200 for first-time offenders and $300 for others.

The new policy will also free up judicial resources to concentrate on more serious crimes:

[Justice] McCaffery...said the shift would help the courts focus on more serious cases.

"This will free up a lot of time in the courtroom," he said. "The fewer de minimis cases, the more time the judge and the prosecutor are going to have on other cases."

Here's how the policy is expected to work:

Under the new policy, people charged with possession for personal use will still be arrested, handcuffed, searched, detained, and fingerprinted. Then, regardless of their criminal history, their case will be heard by a special late-afternoon summary court in Courtroom 408 at the Criminal Justice Center. This "quality of life" court handles offenses such as public drinking and disorderly conduct.

Defendants determined to fight the charges could still demand a full trial, but few are expected to do so.

Chris Goldstein, director of Philadelphia's NORML chapter, who has been lobbying for the new policy says:

"This is a very progressive thing to do on the part of the city," Goldstein said of the new policy. "I couldn't be happier about this."

He said the change also would redress a racial pattern apparent in Philadelphia drug-possession arrests. More than 80 percent typically have been of African Americans, Philadelphia police data show. "All the data from the federal government indicates that blacks and whites consume marijuana at near-equal rates," Goldstein said, yet "the pattern of arrests is that over 75 percent are black men."

This is a smart policy, that would be even smarter if the police were directed to ticket people rather than arrest them.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on April 05, 2010 (boomark / email).