Jenny Durkan, the City of Seattle Mayor, announced today that her office and that of City Attorney Pete Holmes, would be asking Seattle Municipal Court to vacate convictions and dismiss charges for marijuana possession cases prosecuted before pot was legalized statewide.  This could result in thousands of people having their records cleared for an offense that is now legal in Washington.  This will not affect felony convictions, since the Seattle Municipal Court only handles misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor cases.  You can read the latest Seattle Times article announcing this. 

Exactly how the court plans to accomplish this is not stated, and it may face legal hurdles since there is a strict legal procedure for vacating criminal convictions, and many persons with these convictions may not qualify under the current statute. However, the same thing is being proposed in other places, and the cities of San Diego and San Francisco have also recently announced that they will clear criminal marijuana convictions, now that it has been legalized in their state.  You can learn more in this New York Times article.  

Our office may be able to vacate other criminal convictions from a person's record.  Read more about this on our site.