Mr. Moore’s executive order forgiving low-level marijuana offenses for an estimated 100,000 people is a good example of clemency done properly. The bulk of the cases are misdemeanors, involving possession and possession with intent to use drug paraphernalia. The pardons also help correct a glaring racial disparity: Before Maryland joined 23 states and D.C. in legalizing recreational cannabis with a constitutional amendment that went into effect last year, Black Marylanders were three times more likely to be arrested for crimes involving the drug.
Maryland’s policy is part of a national trend. President Biden forgave similar low-level offenses for around 6,500 Americans in a 2022 clemency initiative. There isn’t much more he can do. The vast majority of convictions happen at the state level, so it’s up to state executives to wipe them away. But the president’s thinking on pardons gives those executives a model. The pardon power is a potent authority, and easily abused. Donald Trump exploited it to let his associates, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn, off scot-free for serious violations of the law. Bill Clinton invoked it at the 11th hour to forgive a fugitive from justice whose ex-wife was a big-time Democratic donor. Mr. Biden has embraced the pardon power in individual cases, too, but based on principle rather than personal favor — focusing on people who paid their debt to society in prison and then went further by serving their families and communities after their release. (To be sure, Mr. Trump made some similar grants of clemency to selected drug offenders.)
Crucially, however, Mr. Biden has also employed the pardon power to forgive broader classes of convicts. In commuting the sentences of 75 nonviolent drug offenders as well as pardoning the 6,500 with marijuana-related misdemeanors on their records, he considered the way laws have changed since those punishments were meted out. The 75 nonviolent drug offenders would serve shorter sentences if they were tried today.
Mr. Moore appears to be thinking along the same lines in a state that has already done what the federal government is on the road to doing. Sentences for the types of offenses pardoned in Maryland this month were short to begin with, and, because of the 2023 amendment, prosecutions for possession misdemeanors have now stopped altogether. That means no one is getting out of prison as a result of the pardons, because no one covered is imprisoned. But the move is still significant, both symbolically and substantively. The effects of a drug conviction extend beyond a person’s time behind bars. Maryland has already “banned the box,” or stopped employers from conducting criminal-history screenings of applicants before their first in-person interview. But, in later stages of hiring, companies running background checks still can decide against job seekers with any blot on their record — even if it was years ago, and even if the crimes of which they were convicted aren’t crimes anymore.
Take Shiloh Jordan, 32, who stood next to Mr. Moore as he signed the order. A single cannabis possession charge lost him a job he already had, when, on the second day of his employment, a background check revealed his past. Now, he has a college degree, a successful career and, because of the pardons, a clean slate for whatever lies ahead. Others who received clemency have been turned down for housing, education and more. Thanks to the executive action, their charges will be automatically expunged if their only offense was misdemeanor marijuana possession. That covers about 40,000 cases. Other charges will require expungement by the judiciary, on the reasonable theory that legislation should be required for any more sweeping policy.
Marijuana consumption shouldn’t be celebrated; recent health studies suggest it should be discouraged. But neither should it be harshly punished by the criminal justice system. It, much like other harmful but legal and regulated substances such as alcohol and tobacco, it simply doesn’t do enough damage to merit upending lives over simple possession. Mr. Moore has recognized this, and so have executives in nine other states and multiple cities. More should follow suit.
