Tens of thousands of low-level marijuana convictions could be erased with the OK of Brooklyn's top prosecutor under a new plan for wiping records clean of offenses no longer being prosecuted in parts of the nation's biggest city.
Dist. Atty. Eric Gonzalez announced Friday that he is inviting people to request conviction dismissals. He expects prosecutors will consent in the great majority of a potential 20,000 cases since 1990 and an unknown number of older ones.
To Gonzalez, whose office has stopped prosecuting most cases involving people accused of having small amounts of pot, it's only right to nix convictions that wouldn't be pursued now.
"It's a little unfair to say we're no longer prosecuting these cases, but to have these folks carry these convictions for the rest of their lives," the Democrat told the Associated Press.
