A policy change in the El Paso District Attorney’s Office now allows anyone to take advantage of the “First Chance Program” for misdemeanor marijuana offenses.
In October 2017, El Paso County Commissioners unanimously approved the First Chance Program allowing offenders caught with 4 ounces or less of marijuana to do 8 hours of community service and pay $100. The program allows first-time offenders to avoid jail, an arrest record, and a drug conviction. The offender would only be allowed in the program if the possession of marijuana offense was the only offense at the time and there was no prior criminal record. That was until yesterday.
As of this past Tuesday, the El Paso District Attorney’s office has made a policy change. The policy change allows for those with prior criminal records and found with misdemeanor amounts of marijuana that are arrested and booked to be eligible for the program at the court’s discretion. If the court approves, and you opt into the program, you will be allowed to do the 8 hours of community service, pay the $100 and make it go away. Of course, that is after you have been arrested, paid to bond out, and started the court process.
Opting in to the program allows first-time offenders to avoid the collateral consequences such as arrests, having to pay bail, denial of student financial aid, denial of prospective jobs and housing among other consequences that are associated with a conviction. If you have prior convictions, it is likely that those aforementioned collateral consequences may already haunt your life.
Although a decent deal if you are a first-time offender, it seems the new policy change is a money-grabbing technique as there really is no benefit if you have a prior criminal record. Who is going to want to get arrested, have to pay bond and then opt in to do community service on top of paying another $100 to get the case dropped? Not many people I know. When I broke the news of the policy change, I received comments like “I would just rather do the day and get it over with”, and “Waste of time.” Which is my sentiment as well. Why would you want to go through the extra steps for something that won’t benefit you in the long run? This policy change is smoke and mirrors in order to make it look as if the District Attorney’s office is doing something, when in reality, most know they are not.
The change is made as the race for a new District Attorney is moving full speed ahead and the current District Attorney, Jaime Esparza, is on his way out of office.
El Paso has 4 candidates running for District Attorney. Yvonne Rosales, Karen Dykes, James Montoya, and Roger Montoya. Meetings have been conducted or scheduled with all four of the candidates and we will report on that when they are completed.
Stay tuned as we bring that information shortly. It is definitely a race to pay attention to as it can greatly change how El Paso deals with those that possess personal amounts of marijuana.