DECATUR, Ill. (WAND) — Macon County state's attorney Jay Scott's workload is high — and it's about to get higher.
"We stay pretty busy up here and to put this on top of it, it's going to be a lot of extra work," he said.
The county's cannabis convictions are about to be cleared charges.
Gov. JB Pritzker signed a marijuana legalization bill into law Tuesday morning. Part of the new law includes opportunities for expungement for nonviolent marijuana arrests.
But this isn't all as simple as Pritzker snapping his fingers and having the charges turn to ashes. Illinois State Police will identify people with convictions eligible for expungement and then state's attorneys — like Scott — get to work.
"We're talking hundreds — thousands of cases," Scott said. "I don't know how [ISP is] going to do it with 102 counties in the state...It's going to be a lot of extra work on everybody."
Scott and his team will have to then present the cases to the courts to get them formally expunged. He says this process will take time.
"We're not going to let it affect what we do in going after the most serious offenders," he said. "But it's hard to figure out where we're going to get the manpower and the time to do it."
