Thousands of People Are Getting Criminal Records Vacated Due to Invalidated Drug Possession Law

The Washington State Supreme Court in February 2021 made a decision that will be felt by people and institutions across Washington for years to come. The court decided, in State v. Blake, that the state law on drug possession was flawed, and as a result, convictions for drug possession charges across Washington must be vacated, and fines or fees (referred to as LFOs) paid by defendants must be refunded.

In addition, all pending drug possession cases must be dismissed, and many cases with defendants currently serving sentences must be re-sentenced.

The Blake decision, as it sometimes called, came as a surprise to many. For King County Superior Court and the Department of Judicial Administration (DJA), it meant that a huge and highly consequential body of work appeared almost overnight.

Almost one year after the Court’s watershed decision, that work is steadily being completed. Superior Court and DJA report that a cooperative effort has resulted in the court entering nearly 3,000 orders on State v. Blake cases, while DJA has issued over $40,000 in refunds. The total includes nearly 800 case dismissals and more than 1,800 vacated convictions.

This good news is the product of collaboration between DJA, the prosecutor, public defense, and Superior Court, who have been digging in and addressing this new (and completely surprising) Blake work with urgency.

Still, there’s much more to be done. For King County, there are more than 55,000 cases to address. Twenty-eight thousand of these cases have an LFO paid that should be refunded.

DJA, as the record keeper and financial manager for Superior Court cases, is the King County department perhaps most affected by the Blake decision, as is the case for county clerks across the state. DJA has hired 8 additional staff to do the Blake work, which resulted in a new section in the Finance Division of DJA. Superior Court added a pro tem judicial officer and coordinator. The prosecutor and defense have also staffed up to take on this additional work.

The plan is to get to the point where the court enters a few hundred Blake orders per week. Even with that, since the number of cases to address is so big and the research to find all the “LFOs paid” data is so time consuming, it’s clear that Superior Court and DJA will be working on Blake cases for many years to come.

One innovative thing to come out of this body of work is that the refunds are going to the defendants in the form of debit cards with a balance loaded. This allows “unbanked” defendants to access their refund money easily.

DJA will be providing updates on the progress of Blake work. More information, as well as a refund application, is available on their website.