Governor Maura Healey will announce plans this week to seek pardons for those convicted of simple marijuana possession in Massachusetts, four people familiar with her plans told the Globe, in a sweeping move that could see tens of thousands of people statewide forgiven for past crimes.
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It wasn’t clear Monday how Healey would structure the pardon recommendation, or exactly how many people could be eligible. But two of those briefed on her plans told the Globe that she would seek blanket forgiveness of simple marijuana possession charges dating back years in Massachusetts, where voters in 2016 legalized marijuana.
The announcement, scheduled for Wednesday morning at the State House, appears to follow through on one of the Democrat’s campaign promises. It would continue her muscular and early use of the office’s clemency power, which she has embraced more forcefully than many of her predecessors.
“It’s supposed to be a blanket pardon,” said state Senator Adam Gomez, a Springfield Democrat who was briefed on the basic details of the governor’s plans and invited to Wednesday’s news conference. Gomez is also the Senate chair of the Legislature’s committee on cannabis policy, and has talked openly about facing marijuana possession charges as a teenager.
“Folks aren’t going to have to do anything at all specific to possession charges,” Gomez said of Healey’s pardon recommendation. “Those records and those arrests are going to be going away.”
State Representative Bud Williams, a Springfield Democrat, said Healey’s aides told him the pardons would cover from “March, all the way back.” Such a move would still likely need approval by the Governor’s Council, which has to approve the governor’s pardon and commutation recommendations, Williams said.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Williams, the House chair of the Legislature’s committee on racial equity, civil rights, and inclusion. “This has been an albatross around folks’ necks. There’s a lot of Black and brown people” affected by this.
Healey aides declined to comment further Monday, saying only that she has previously committed to follow President Biden’s lead on marijuana pardons and plans to offer more details Wednesday.
Healey said during her 2022 gubernatorial campaign that she would “move to pardon state convictions for simple marijuana possession, modeled after the steps taken” by Biden. That October, Biden announced he would allow those convicted of marijuana possession under federal law to apply for pardons.
At the time, Biden’s move was expected to affect only about 6,500 people with federal convictions, plus thousands more residents of Washington, D.C. The president urged governors to pardon people who have state-level marijuana possession charges, a vastly larger population.
The list of those eligible under a statewide pardon for marijuana possession convictions in Massachusetts could be lengthy.
There were nearly 68,800 civil or criminal violations for marijuana possession issued in Massachusetts from 2000 through 2013, according to a Cannabis Control Commission research report. From 1995 to 2008 — the year Massachusetts voted to decriminalize the possession of one ounce or less of marijuana — there were approximately 8,000 or more arrests each year for selling or possessing marijuana, according to a 2016 analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
Both reports found that people of color were disproportionately charged with marijuana-related crimes over the years. For example, while Black people accounted for 8 percent of the state’s population in 2014, they accounted for 24 percent of marijuana possession arrests that year, according to the ACLU report.
Hispanic people, meanwhile, accounted for 11 percent for possession arrests reported between 2000 and 2013, not including data from Boston or State Police, according to the Cannabis Control Commission’s research. People identifying as Hispanic, however, never accounted for more than 10 percent of the population between 2000 and 2010.
Healey had previously opposed efforts to legalize marijuana, joining with then-governor Charlie Baker and others in 2016 to campaign against the ballot question that voters ultimately approved, creating the legal cannabis market that exists in Massachusetts today.
Healey later backed away from her opposition, saying in August 2022 that her concerns about the public health consequences may have been “unnecessary.”
Lawmakers and advocates have said that old marijuana charges can still haunt former defendants by appearing on background checks, blocking them from getting housing or jobs.
A Globe review in 2021 found that few people had successfully cleared their marijuana-related state criminal records under a 2018 law that allows people to apply to have the charges erased, or “expunged,” from their records.
During Healey’s first year in office, she pardoned 13 people, reviving the state’s little-used clemency power in ways unseen for decades so early in a governor’s term. She also released new guidelines that vastly expand who can qualify for clemency.
She’s not alone. While inconsistent across the country, the use of clemency has soared in some red and blue states alike, including in Missouri, where Governor Mike Parson had pardoned more than 600 people in just three years.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, had granted more than 1,100 for drug, theft, and other offenses by the end of last year — a record in his state. Before leaving office in January, Pennsylvania’s then-governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, granted 2,500, more than doubling the number issued by any of his predecessors.
Hundreds of Wolf’s pardons were for marijuana-related offenses, though they weren’t granted automatically. People with minor nonviolent marijuana convictions had to apply to be considered.
“My north star is going to be, what does it mean in terms of justice and fairness?” Healey told the Globe in December about granting pardons, which forgive a criminal offense, and commutations, which can shorten a prison sentence.
Healey has yet to issue a commutation.
So far, she has nearly matched the 15 pardons that Baker had approved by the Governor’s Council during his entire eight years in office. Baker also approved commutations for three men serving life sentences for murder. Former governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, recommended just four pardons and one commutation over eight years in office. Mitt Romney, a Republican, boasted of not granting any during his only term in office.
