Just when it appeared that the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and the City of Jersey City were on the same page regarding marijuana reforms, a statement issued from Trenton says that Jersey City “did not accurately describe yesterday’s meeting.”
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“This morning, the Office of the Mayor of Jersey City issued a press release that did not accurately describe yesterday’s meeting and made it appear as if the Attorney General had already agreed to the outcome of the working group and the content of the directive,” the NJ Attorney General’s Office posted on their website this afternoon.
“The Mayor of Jersey City did not participate in yesterday’s meeting and the Attorney General regrets the inaccuracy of the city’s press statements. The Attorney General remains deeply committed to social justice issues and looks forward to working with other criminal justice stakeholders as the state examines over the coming month the appropriate scope of municipal prosecutors’ discretion in marijuana-related cases.”
Early this morning, the City of Jersey City sent out a press release applauding the AG’s office for directing all municipal prosecutors in the state to adjourn marijuana cases until after September 4th.
While that fact is not being disputed, the state argues that Attorney General Gurbir Grewal “did not commit to the final outcome of the working group or the content of the forthcoming directive.”
Jersey City’s release seemed to take a similar stance on the matter, though one the AG’s office did not feel was completely accurate:
“As a result of this positive and productive meeting, Attorney General Grewal will convene a working group of criminal justice stakeholders this summer – including Chief Prosecutor Hudnut – to study this issue and advise the Attorney General on statewide solutions that achieve the same aims of decriminalization in accordance with existing state law and court rules,” their release said.
Additionally, the AG’s lengthy response continued to take aim at Jersey City for allegedly not consulting with county or state officials before announcing the new policy on Wednesday, calling decriminalizing marijuana “an improper exercise of a municipal prosecutor’s authority” – mirroring what Grewal had said last week.
In a letter addressed to all county and municipal prosecutors sent out earlier today, Grewal indicated that he plans to issue a statewide directive on the “prosecutorial discretion in marijuana-related offenses in municipal court.”
In response to the most recent criticism, Fulop took to Twitter to give his point of view.
“Hahah. Lots of egos back/forth here. It doesn’t matter to me if they take credit/not. The facts are pretty clear, JC pushed this on Thursday, they said we can’t, we said we can legally do it, the HCPO tried to take over JC marijuana charges,” he began.
” … on Monday to prosecute them MORE aggressively than a simple assault to which they would be the only ones in USA, then they backed down to that + decided to grant a 30 day moratorium STATEWIDE + work w/us on a directive. I’m not sure how any facts here are incorrect/misleading.”
