EVERETT — Edmonds Municipal Court staff have been working quickly to vacate a number of drug possession convictions by the end of the month — before drastic state funding cuts take effect.
The vacations stem from a 2021 Washington Supreme Court decision — State v. Blake — that found a felony drug possession law was unconstitutional because it didn’t require intent or knowledge of possession. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people convicted with a substance possession crime in Washington since 1971 are eligible to have it wiped from their record, including thousands in Snohomish County. A number of cases are also eligible for reimbursements for legal fees and other costs.
On July 1, state funding for Blake vacations and reimbursements will drop by more than 80% as part of the 2025-27 biennium budget.
As the city of Edmonds faces a fiscal crisis, the municipal court launched the Blake Vacate Project in January to get ahead of funding cuts on the state level, Court Administrator Uneek Maylor said. The project was part of a new unit within the state Administrative Office of the Courts that provides administrative help to local courts for Blake vacations.
“It’s a service that we provide, but the money is fleeting,” said Robin Zimmermann, the state office’s Blake external relations liaison.
The Office of Civil Legal Aid, which funds legal aid groups that help with Blake outreach and resentencing, also faces a $5 million cut in the new budget.
“They do not have funding to continue Blake work after June,” Zimmermann said.
The 2023-25 biennium budget allocated $11.5 million to the Administrative Office of the Courts for city costs and $38 million for county costs. Starting July 1, funding will drop to $7.6 million for both cities and counties combined.
“We didn’t know it was going to go down that amount — that’s a very huge shortfall,” Maylor said. “I’m not sure even the AOC was prepared for that.”
Since January, Edmonds Municipal Court has reviewed more than 870 cases from 1986 to 2020. It may not sound like a lot of cases, Maylor said, but for a court staff of less than 10 people, it would have been nearly impossible to do on their own. Before the project, the court had only vacated about two or three cases by private counsel, she said.
“A small court staff is really moving mountains and attempting to get a lot of work done,” Maylor said.
Removing convictions from someone’s record could be lifechanging, said Caroline Mann, who works on Blake cases for the Snohomish County Public Defender Association. When she started working on the Blake project, she heard a story about a man who was denied admission into a nursing home because of a drug possession conviction in the 1970s. Once he got it vacated under Blake, he was accepted into the nursing home.
“The convictions are still affecting people even 20 to 30 years later,” she said.
The state funding cut raises questions about how much funding will be available for Blake refunds, Maylor said. In Edmonds, refunds ranged from $35 to $1,130.
Starting July 1, the state may not be able to provide refunds to everyone who requests one, Maylor said.
“This is unconstitutional,” Zimmermann said. “We need to provide relief. It’s court mandated. We need to find these individuals. So we’re in a quandary right now.”
As of January, about 15% of eligible cases from Snohomish County Superior Court had been sent to the Blake Refund Bureau, according to state data. Many courts have had trouble locating people affected who may have moved out of the state since their conviction. Others don’t have enough resources.
“The assumption, maybe, by some in the legislature is that the Blake work is close to being done, or is done completely,” Zimmermann said. “This project is really a seven-to-10-year effort.”
While Everett Municipal Court has sent more than 2,000 cases to the Blake Refund Bureau, only eight of them are closed, Court Administrator Sharon Whittaker said. Many people still aren’t aware of the court decision, Zimmermann said.
“We want everybody to have equal opportunity, but that’s very difficult to do when outreach is minimal,” she said. “I’m the sole outreach person for Blake work at AOC.”
Marysville Municipal Court has only completed “a handful” of Blake vacations, said Court Administrator Suzanne Elsner, but has hired a summer intern to help process the remaining 2,400 cases.
Overall, Snohomish County has been a state leader in Blake vacations, Zimmermann said. In October 2024, the county held the first-ever day dedicated to Blake case relief. Since 2021, the county has vacated nearly 3,700 drug possession convictions and gave new sentences to 141 people, Mann said. Come July, the Snohomish County Public Defender Association may have to decrease the number of defenders working on Blake cases. Still, the county will be ahead of most others in the state.
“There’s only maybe three counties that have dedicated public defenders who have been working on Blake,” Mann said. “It’s unfortunately very uneven across the state.”
Questions about prior convictions?
If you’ve been convicted of a drug crime in Snohomish County, visit the website of the Snohomish County Public Defender Association to connect with a defense attorney: snocopda.org/blake
For more information about State v. Blake or to request a refund, visit the state’s Blake Refund Bureau website: www.courts.wa.gov/blakerefund
Jenna Peterson: 425-339-3486; jenna.peterson@heraldnet.com; X: @jennarpetersonn.
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