Drug Crimes, Substance Abuse Overturned

[Sarah Young]

Jurisdiction

Washington

Washington state legalized marijuana years ago. Are the fines paid for possession refundable? I've heard conflicting answers and am unable to find the answer online.

 

[adjusterjack]

I wouldn't expect the state would want to refund all the revenue collected prior to legalization.

I don't care enough to sift through tons of information.

I suggest you join City Data and post your question in the WA state forum.

Washington Forum - Relocation, Moving, General and Local City Discussions - City-Data Forum

 

[Tax Counsel]

Washington state legalized marijuana years ago. Are the fines paid for possession refundable? I've heard conflicting answers and am unable to find the answer online.

The state is not obligated to refund fines for acts there were criminal at the time the acts were done. All that repeal of a criminal statute does is make an act that was once illegal in the past legal going forward. If you were arrested and fined for being in possession of weed after weed was legalized then you'd have a good case to make for overturning the verdict and getting the fine refunded. But if you had possession of weed while it was illegal, then at that time you were committing a criminal offense and subject to a fine and/or jail for that breach of the law. The repeal does not change the fact that when you were caught with weed it was illegal to possess.

It is not like a law being determined unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. In that circumstance the state enacting the law violated the constitution and therefore the law was never valid. The state may be liable for refunding fines taken for a law that was determined not to be valid in the first place. But that's not the situation involved here.

 

[zddoodah]

Washington state legalized marijuana years ago.

2012 to be specific.

Are the fines paid for possession refundable?

Are you asking whether someone who paid a fine for committing a crime before 2012 might be entitled to have that money returned just because the act was subsequently decriminalized? Even if that had been a possibility, it's been more than a decade.

I've heard conflicting answers

From whom?