Connecticut’s chief prosecutor announced last week that state’s attorneys have dismissed more than 1,500 pending cannabis-related criminal cases involving offenses that are no longer against the law. In a letter sent to a Connecticut legislative committee on March 31, Chief State’s Attorney Patrick J. Griffin reported that prosecutors had reviewed more than 4,000 pending drug possession cases and dropped the charges for 1,562 of them.

In June 2021, Connecticut lawmakers passed legislation to legalize personal quantities of marijuana and to regulate commercial cannabis production and sales. The possession provisions went into effect one month later, and dispensaries began regulated sales of recreational marijuana in December 2022. 

The legalization statute also included provisions for the expungement of past cannabis-related convictions in cases involving up to four ounces of cannabis. In January, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont announced he had “erased 42,964 cannabis convictions” as a result of the legislation. But the expungement provisions did not explicitly clear charges for pending marijuana possession cases, a point that was later clarified by lawmakers. 

“The legislature made clear to the Division of Criminal Justice that it intended for the new cannabis laws to apply to people who had charges pending on the date the law went into effect,” Griffin said in a statement cited by CTInsider. “Understanding the intent of the legislature, the division undertook an expedited review of its files to respect the legislature’s wishes. The state’s attorneys and their offices should be commended for their efforts and their commitment to addressing these cases in such a timely manner.”

More Than 4,000 Pending Drug Possession Cases Reviewed

The charges dropped by prosecutors represent cases that were pending when the legalization bill went into effect. In addition to the 1,562 dropped charges, about 600 more that involved multiple charges were modified to remove cannabis charges from the case. Griffin reported to lawmakers that his office had to review each of more than 4,000 pending cases individually, citing state law that combines cannabis with other controlled substances such as heroin and cocaine.

“It has been the shared position of this committee and the division that persons charged with a possession of a cannabis-type substance offense that has subsequently been decriminalized should not be prosecuted for that offense,” Griffin wrote in his letter to lawmakers last week. “Thus, identifying these cannabis cases could not be accomplished merely by conducting a computerized review of pending cases.” 

“This was no small task and quite labor intensive,” he added.

Griffin sent his letter to the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee, which was last week considering a new bill directing state’s attorneys to end prosecutions for cannabis possession cases. The bill, HB-6787, also creates a process for automatic sentence modification of all eligible marijuana convictions identified by prosecutorial officials and instructs courts to determine if release or sentence modification is warranted. The measure was approved by the panel by a vote of 27-10, although Representative Steve Stafstrom, the co-chair of the committee, said that the bill is likely to be amended as it continues through the legislative process.

“This clears up confusion that may have been created under the legalization-of-cannabis process, whereby certain offenses that were pending before cannabis legalization remained pending even after that legislation was adopted,” Stafstrom said on March 31. “I want to specifically thank the office of the Chief State’s Attorney, who I know heard the concerns, the bipartisan concerns of this committee at the public hearing in terms of getting those cases dismissed.”

Connecticut Activists Applaud Dropped Charges

Griffin’s move to drop the pending marijuana cases was warmly received by cannabis policy reform advocates including Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans unduly carry the burden and stigma of a past conviction for behavior that most Americans, and a growing number of states, no longer consider to be a crime,” Armentano said in a statement from the cannabis policy reform group. “Our sense of justice and our principles of fairness demand that public officials and the courts move swiftly to right the past wrongs of cannabis prohibition and criminalization.”

Sarah Gersten, executive director and general counsel of the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to securing the release of all cannabis prisoners, praised Griffin’s move and urged lawmakers to approve HB-6787.

“We applaud Chief State’s Attorney Patrick Griffin for dismissing more than 1,500 pending cannabis cases and modifying approximately 600 others. This announcement marks a tremendous step towards achieving justice in Connecticut,” Gersten wrote in an email to High Times. “However, HB-6787’s passage is still crucial to ensure those currently incarcerated have the same opportunity to have their sentences reviewed and potentially terminated. It is unconscionable that some in Connecticut remain incarcerated for cannabis while others are profiting from the exact same activity.”

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A new app is aiming to democratize the legal world through the power of artificial intelligence. Human attorneys tend to be quite expensive, but it turns out robot lawyers are cheap. 

The app, called “DoNotPay,” is billed as “the world’s first robot lawyer.”

It uses “artificial intelligence to help consumers fight against large corporations and solve their problems like beating parking tickets, appealing bank fees, and suing robocallers,” according to the app’s website. 

Here’s how it works, via CBS News: The “AI-creation runs on a smartphone, listens to court arguments and formulates responses for the defendant,” and the “AI lawyer tells the defendant what to say in real-time, through headphones.”

According to CBS News, the app will “be the first of its kind to help a defendant fight a traffic ticket in court next month,” and the company behind the app says that it has already “used AI-generated form letters and chatbots to help people secure refunds for in-flight Wifi that didn’t work, as well as to lower bills and dispute parking tickets, among other issues.”

The “DoNotPay” app is yet another example of “generative artificial intelligence,” technology that can generate text and other forms of content in response to human commands. 

Generative AI has attracted considerable attention from investors since last month’s release of “ChatGPT,” a chatbot from the San Francisco-based lab OpenAI that created a sensation with its music and stories. 

The New York Times reported last week that more than a million people have used “ChatGPT,” and that OpenAI “is in talks to complete a deal that would value it at around $29 billion, more than twice its valuation in 2021.”

CBS News reported that DoNotPay “has raised $27.7 million from tech-focused venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Crew Capital.”

“In the past year, AI tech has really developed and allowed us to go back and forth in real time with corporations and governments,” DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder told CBS News. “We spoke live [with companies and customer service reps] to lower bills with companies; and what we’re doing next month is try to use the tech in a courtroom for the first time.”

The proliferation of artificial intelligence has set off plenty of alarm bells. As Politico noted in a story this week about DoNotPay, “the public release of increasingly advanced AI tools has raised questions about everything from high school plagiarism to the very essence of what it is to be human.” 

And while many have found chatbots to be fun, a robot lawyer might just be too creepy for some. 

It also happens to be illegal in many jurisdictions. 

“Some courts allow defendants to wear hearing aids, some versions of which are bluetooth-enabled. That’s how Browder determined that DoNotPay’s technology can legally be used in this case,” CBS News reported. “However, the tech isn’t legal in most courtrooms. Some states require that all parties consent to be recorded, which rules out the possibility of a robot lawyer entering many courtrooms. Of the 300 cases DoNotPay considered for a trial of its robot lawyer, only two were feasible.”

Browder told CBS that it’s “within the letter of the law, but I don’t think anyone could ever imagine this would happen.” 

“It’s not in the spirit of law, but we’re trying to push things forward and a lot of people can’t afford legal help. If these cases are successful, it will encourage more courts to change their rules,” Browder said. 

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