The Brooklyn district attorney asked a judge to dismiss the borough’s more than 3,500 open marijuana cases Tuesday.
District Attorney Eric Gonzalez requested that Judge Keisha Espinal drop 3,578 open pot cases and that any arrest warrants out in relation to those cases be vacated.
After the dismissals, just eight cases involving marijuana charges are still pending in Brooklyn Criminal Court, and they are in instances where people are charged with driving under the influence, Gonzalez said.
“I am gratified that the New York Legislature legalized marijuana earlier this year in a bill that included an automatic expungement provision. Since its passage, my office has moved to dismiss open cases and stated we will no longer bring pending marijuana charges before grand or petit juries,” Gonzalez said.
The late Brooklyn DA Kenneth Thompson stopped prosecuting most low-level marijuana possession cases in 2014.
In 2017, Gonzalez halted all pot smoking cases.
The marijuana charges in some cases in Brooklyn Supreme Court felony cases will also be dropped, Gonzalez said.
Marijuana was legalized in New York State this year as part of budget negotiations by the Legislature.
Last month, Bronx DA Darcel Clark asked a judge to dismiss more than 6,000 possession and sale of marijuana cases.
Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. tossed out more than 3,000 open warrants for marijuana cases in 2018.
Queens DA Melinda Katz also dropped more than 3,000 marijuana cases in June, and Staten Island DA Michael McMahon is in the process of dismissing more than 1,100, his spokesman said.
