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October 6, 2022

A few more details about President Biden's mass pardon of federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana

As noted in this prior post, Prez Biden today granted a mass pardon to "all prior Federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana."  This official proclamation, titled "A Proclamation on Granting Pardon for the Offense of Simple Possession of Marijuana," provides some who and how details:

Acting pursuant to the grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., do hereby grant a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to (1) all current United States citizens and lawful permanent residents who committed the offense of simple possession of marijuana in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, as currently codified at 21 U.S.C. 844 and as previously codified elsewhere in the United States Code, or in violation of D.C. Code 48–904.01(d)(1), on or before the date of this proclamation, regardless of whether they have been charged with or prosecuted for this offense on or before the date of this proclamation; and (2) all current United States citizens and lawful permanent residents who have been convicted of the offense of simple possession of marijuana in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, as currently codified at 21 U.S.C. 844 and as previously codified elsewhere in the United States Code, or in violation of D.C. Code 48–904.01(d)(1); which pardon shall restore to them full political, civil, and other rights. 

My intent by this proclamation is to pardon only the offense of simple possession of marijuana in violation of Federal law or in violation of D.C. Code 48–904.01(d)(1), and not any other offenses related to marijuana or other controlled substances.  No language herein shall be construed to pardon any person for any other offense, including possession of other controlled substances, whether committed prior, subsequent, or contemporaneous to the pardoned offense of simple possession of marijuana.  This pardon does not apply to individuals who were non-citizens not lawfully present in the United States at the time of their offense.

Pursuant to this proclamation, the Attorney General, acting through the Pardon Attorney, shall administer and effectuate the issuance of certificates of pardon to eligible applicants who have been charged or convicted for the offense of simple possession of marijuana in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, as currently codified at 21 U.S.C. 844 and as previously codified elsewhere in the United States Code, or in violation of D.C. Code 48–904.01(d)(1).  The Attorney General, acting through the Pardon Attorney, is directed to develop and announce application procedures for certificates of pardon and to begin accepting applications in accordance with such procedures as soon as reasonably practicable.  The Attorney General, acting through the Pardon Attorney, shall review all properly submitted applications and shall issue certificates of pardon to eligible applicants in due course. 

Helpfully, the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney has this extended Q&A about the reach of the pardon proclamation, and here are some interesting parts:

Does the proclamation apply to convictions under state law?  

No. President Biden’s proclamation does not pardon convictions under state law, although it does apply to possession of marijuana convictions under the District of Columbia’s criminal code.  

Does the proclamation apply to all types of federal marijuana offenses?  

No. President Biden’s proclamation applies only to simple possession of marijuana offenses. Conspiracy, distribution, possession with intent to distribute, and other charges involving marijuana are not pardoned by the Proclamation.  

Do I qualify for a pardon if I was convicted under 21 U.S.C. § 844 of possessing marijuana and another drug in a single offense?  

No. The proclamation does not apply to persons who were convicted of possessing multiple different controlled substance in the same offense. For example, if you were convicted of possessing marijuana and cocaine in a single offense, you do not qualify for pardon under the terms of President Biden’s proclamation. If you were convicted of one count of simple possession of marijuana and a second count of possession of cocaine, President Biden’s proclamation applies only to the simple possession of marijuana count, not the possession of cocaine count.  

Does the proclamation apply to charges that are currently pending as of October 6, 2022? 

Yes. President Biden’s Proclamation applies if the qualifying offense occurred on or before October 6, 2022, even if a conviction has not been obtained by that date.  

Does the proclamation protect me from being charged with marijuana possession in the future? 

No. The proclamation pardons only those offenses occurring on or before October 6, 2022. It does not have any effect on marijuana possession offenses occurring after October 6, 2022. 

In various press reports, I keep seeing some version of this accounting of the impact from this ABC News piece:

The executive action will benefit 6,500 people with prior federal convictions and thousands of others charged under the District of Columbia's criminal code, according to senior administration officials.  Elaborating on the number of people affected, officials said "there are no individuals currently in federal prison solely for simple possession of marijuana."

I presume that the US Pardon Attorney will keep detailed records of how many people end up acquiring certificates of pardon (though all these people have been pardoned, a certificate just serves as a way to get an official memorialization of that fact).  And I would love to see more details, now or later, about some of the demographics of the estimated population who got these pardons.  Someone has clearly run the numbers, though I suspect any accounting here is a bit of a guess and also lacks as much demographic information as might be really interesting.

UPDATE: Thanks to commentor atomicfrog, I just saw that the US Sentencing Commission has produced this three-page analysis of "data relating to offenders sentenced between fiscal year 1992 and fiscal year 2021 convicted of at least one count of simple possession involving marijuana."  The analysis merely details yearly convictions since 1992 with number of convictions of US citizens and lawful permanent residents.  The data is more than a bit inscrutable in part because there are three charts for which the relationship to each other is unclear and because of a note stating that "2,085 cases were excluded from the three analyses in this report due to missing information relating to citizenship."

Since these data are from the US Sentencing Commission, the data sets used for these analyses ought to have race and gender and age and criminal history information.  Perhaps in time the US Sentencing Commission or the White House will look to provide additional demographic information here.   Also, now seeing that the mid-1990s brought as many as 500 federal marijuana possession convictions per year, I suspect there were at least few thousand more prior relevant convictions not captured in these data but subject to coverage by the mass pardon from Prez Biden.  I am tempted to start saying that it looks like 10,000 or more pardons were actually announced by the President in this initiative.

October 6, 2022 at 06:58 PM | Permalink

Comments

I'd like to see where they got their numbers as well - when I ran the data from USSC Ask IDA program, from 2015 to 2021 (only dates available in IDA) - there were 493 defendant's whose guideline was 2D2.1 - the Unlawful Possession Guideline and where the primary drug was marijuana. Obviously, the pardon data includes more years, regardless, love to see the analysis.

Posted by: atomicfrog | Oct 7, 2022 8:23:32 AM

If you ask, you shall receive, looks like the USSC answered my question - https://www.ussc.gov/about/news/press-releases/october-7-2022

WASHINGTON, DC ― Yesterday President Biden announced his intention to pardon current United States citizens and lawful permanent residents convicted of simple possession of marijuana, directing the Attorney General to develop an administrative process for the issuance of certificates of pardon to eligible individuals. Pursuant to its statutory mission, the United States Sentencing Commission serves as a clearinghouse for the collection, preparation, and dissemination of information relating to federal sentencing practices. The Commission occasionally performs analyses relating to significant Executive Branch initiatives relating to the presidential pardon and commutation authority.

The analysis below provides data relating to offenders sentenced between fiscal year 1992 and fiscal year 2021 convicted of at least one count of simple possession involving marijuana (21 U.S.C. § 844).

Posted by: atomicfrog | Oct 7, 2022 3:58:36 PM

Thank you for this very interesting information from the USSC. When I was looking for marijuana only offenders in the BOP the USSC told me that they did not break out this category. At that time, I was told that they considered a conviction a marijuana conviction if marijuana was the predominant drug – not the only drug.

If there are 6577 people eligible for pardons for simple marijuana possession, they must be people from the District of Columbia and those arrested on federal land – parks, reserves etc. I wonder if there is a breakdown of how many of those eligible for pardons are from D.C.?

Would the 555 simple marijuana possession cases with previous convictions for other drugs be subtracted from the 6577 figure?

No pardons have been granted and it looks as if the process has not been established and may be complicated. I long for some simplicity from the DOJ and am looking forward to the day the announcements show up on the DOJ Pardon Attorney’s site.

Posted by: beth curtis | Oct 9, 2022 8:49:02 PM

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