Last week, Los Angeles County and San Joaquin County jointly announced that they would be partnering with Code for America to automate the clearance of more than 50,000 cannabis convictions rendered eligible under Proposition 64 (a.k.a. the California Marijuana Legalization Initiative). It's a process that may just revolutionize the way that records are cleared in the future.

“There's no action required by the person with the criminal record. There's no hearing required, no petitions required that somebody would have to go to court to follow,” said Alia Toran-Burrell, senior program manager for Clear My Record at Code for America. “We're automating this process and putting the onus on the government instead of the person.”

Los Angles and San Joaquin aren't the first counties to hop aboard the Code for America bandwagon. A pilot program was launched in San Francisco in May 2018 to review each of the approximately 9300 eligible cases that had been accumulating since 1975.

According to Alex Bastian, deputy chief of staff in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office, only a small fraction had been successfully petitioned for review. He cited legal fees and time away from work as possible deterrents for people who would otherwise be inclined to seek relief, even though having those convictions cleared could possibly make it easier for someone to find housing, gain employment or receive a loan.

The district attorney's office was able to initially determine who could potentially have their convictions dismissed under Proposition 64 by using set of eligible requirements. Rap sheets were then pulled and fed to a code developed by Code for America, which reviewed them based on the predetermined eligibility criteria.

Once the eligible candidates had been determined, any relevant motions or petitions were automatically filled out and filed with the court. After 13 months, every single eligible case in San Francisco had been processed, coming in well under the original 18 month deadline.

“Instead of having courts process files one by one with hearings, it's been like kind of a bulk upload into their court system. So it's streamlining the process from top to bottom,” Toran-Burrell said.

The program received its first upgrade shortly after California passed Assembly Bill 1793, which required the state's Department of Justice to flag past all convictions that are potentially up for dismissal.

The district attorney's offices in both Los Angeles County and San Joaquin County have been working with Code for America since July 2018, but formally announced the partnership last week. Greg Risling, a public information officer at Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, said the details surrounding how Code for America's technology will be applied there are still being worked out.

Los Angeles has approximately 50,000 convictions eligible under Prop 64. During a press conference held last Monday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey described the original clearance process approved by voters as cumbersome.

“We believe this partnership will not only benefit the people whose cannabis convictions will be cleared but also save government the resources that otherwise would be required to comply with the law,” Lacey said.

San Joaquin County, meanwhile, has 4,000 eligible cases under Prop 64, but is still working against the same July 1, 2020, review deadline laid out by Assembly Bill 1793.

Code for America is already thinking beyond that deadline. The organization has designs that exceed marijuana, including automating relief associated with California Proposition 47, which reduced some non-violent felonies to misdemeanors. Proposition 64 has been almost like a test ground, a way to prove to people that technology can benefit the legal system without becoming prohibitively expensive or cumbersome.

“We're really seeing the work with Proposition 64 and marijuana convictions as a blueprint to think about how other types of remedies in California and across the nation can be automated,” Lacey said.