| Pete Holmes |
| Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes: “We’re not going to prosecute marijuana cases anymore” |
Seattle’s new city attorney, keeping a campaign promise, is dismissing all marijuana possession cases, starting with those that were begun under the previous city attorney.
“We’re not going to prosecute marijuana possession cases anymore,” City Attorney Pete Holmes said Thursday. “I meant it when I said it” during the campaign.
Holmes, who defeated incumbent Tom Carr in November, said he dismissed two marijuana cases in his first day on the job, and several others are about to be dismissed, reports Emily Heffter at The Seattle Times.
Unless there are “out of the ordinary circumstances,” Holmes’s office doesn’t intend to file charges for marijuana possession, according to Craig Sims, criminal division chief.
Seattle voters in 2003 approved Referendum 75, directing law enforcement to make marijuana the lowest priority. According to city records, the old city attorney, Carr, kept prosecuting many cases anyway.
