Dallas County DA Will No Longer Prosecute First-Time Marijuana Offenders

Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot will no longer prosecute misdemeanor marijuana cases for first-time offenders, the district attorney's office announced Thursday.

Anyone arrested a second or subsequent time for misdemeanor marijuana possession will be offered entry into a pretrial diversion program that will allow them to keep their criminal records clean. Creuzot said his office is also dropping all pending first-time misdemeanor marijuana charges filed before he took office.

In a memo released Thursday, Creuzot wrote that, though black people and people of other races use marijuana at similar rates, blacks are three times more likely to be prosecuted for misdemeanor marijuana possession than people of any other race. Black defendants are more likely to be convicted of misdemeanor marijuana charges and more likely to be given jail sentences upon conviction, he said.

According to data obtained by the Observer last year, the overwhelming majority of people ticketed for marijuana possession during the early days of Dallas' cite-and-release program were black or Hispanic.

Read more: https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-county-district-attorneys-office-will-no-longer-prosecute-first-time-marijuana-offenders-11638751