California’s Newsom signs a bill to offer alternative pleading for those facing drug charges

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has earned praise from drug reform advocates after signing legislation last month that creates an alternative plea bargaining option for people facing certain drug-related convictions.

The law, titled the Alternate Plea Act, allows prosecutors to offer a public harassment plea to some defendants charged with drug-related offenses.

As the Drug Policy Alliance states, “public harassment pleading will carry the same criminal penalty as the charged drug offense, but without triggering the side effects.”

“This plea option allows individuals to resume life after incarceration and will not be prevented from securing housing and employment,” the group said in a press release last month.

Under the law, prosecutors have discretion to bring forward public harassment. The bill, dubbed the “nation’s first proposal,” was sponsored by Democratic Assembly member Reggie Jones-Sawyer. The Drug Policy Alliance said the measure “will serve as a model for other states to follow suit and reduce the draconian impact on drug convictions.”

“The ability for noncitizens, lawful permanent residents, or native-born Californians to plead a public harassment charge rather than a drug offense could be the difference between a family separation and an opportunity to put life right,” Jones- Sawyer in a statement last month. “Under current law, there are limited options for a judge and attorney to avoid an overly harsh sentencing and disruptive collateral consequences for the individual and their family. AB 2195 gives prosecutors additional resources to obtain an appropriate sentence in certain drug-related cases, thereby protecting California residents, including non-citizens, and their families from lifelong consequences.”

California lawmakers passed the Alternate Plea Act in August, prompting proponents to push Newsom, a Democrat widely believed to harbor White House aspirations, to sign the measure into law.

In a letter to the governor sent in August, Alison Leal Parker, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s US program, urged Newsom to sign the law and said it “would help some mitigate the resulting catastrophic side effects prior to widespread and racially discriminatory enforcement of drug laws across the state and country.”

“If the proposed law were to become law, prosecutors would have discretion to prevent or mitigate the side effects of drug convictions, such as: Although California policy is to encourage the successful re-entry and rehabilitation of individuals convicted of a felony, the side effects of convictions often block these efforts. While a conviction for public harassment can still be considered in all of these circumstances, the absolute penalties and bans are reduced to services and resources,” Parker wrote in the letter.

After Newsom signed the bill into law last month, Jeannette Zanipatin, the state director of California’s Drug Policy Alliance, said California’s law “demonstrates a commitment to continuing to eradicate the drug war from people’s lives.”

“The severity and prevalence of drug convictions are devastating to an individual’s and their family’s life prospects, limiting access to a safety net and making it difficult for people to stay connected to family, employment and the basic necessities of life. For immigrants, almost any violation of the drug law, including minor drug offenses, can result in automatic ICE incarceration and deportation,” said Zanipatin, adding that the law “helps end the drug war’s fixation on continued punishment by ensuring that people do not deprive themselves of access to the resources they need to achieve stability after serving their sentence” and “provides a crucial tool to prevent the unnecessary segregation and often permanent banishment of immigrants from their families “.