Florida county plans to vacate convictions of people who bought crack their

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Once upon a time back in the 1990s, the Broward County Sheriff’s Department got into the crack cocaine business, manufacturing crack in its offices. The deputies would take the crack onto the streets undercover, sell it, and arrest anyone who bought it.

I’m gonna pull this from a news outlet so you don’t think I’m pulling your leg:

For three years, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office produced its own crack cocaine, so it could sell it to people that deputies would then arrest for buying crack cocaine.

Now, a few questions inevitably come to mind about that whole process:

Why did they have to manufacture the crack? Isn’t the manufacturing of crack cocaine illegal? Besides, wasn’t there crack in the evidence room or something they could have used?

And more importantly, isn’t entrapment like this unconstitutional?

The answer to the second question, “Isn’t the manufacturing of crack cocaine illegal?” is yes; the Florida Supreme Court put an end to practice in 1993, calling it “outrageous.”

So, why is this blot on Florida law enforcement’s record in the news again?

It turns out that people convicted because of this outrageous entrapment scheme never had the convictions overturned; and 30 years later, they are still on their permanent criminal records as felonies.

Reviews of the records show that there are about 2,600 people with unconstitutional convictions appearing in criminal history checks that have limited their ability to get housing, work, or volunteer in the community.

The State Attorney for Broward County Harold Pryor announced his office planned to do something about that, declaring, ‘it is never too late to do the right thing.’

‘These records may be a dim memory or an unfortunate part of history to many, but they have had a long-lasting and severe impact on the lives of the people who were arrested – as well as their families and the wider community,’ Pryor added.

The records in question were slated to be destroyed, but luckily they weren’t blindly shredded.

‘These matters were well before our tenures. However, I am of the opinion that the State has an ethical duty and obligation to correct this injustice before destruction [of old records] is initiated,’ Pryor said.

All of the convictions will be vacated and stricken from the records of those affected.

Kudos to these Floridians for doing the right thing even if it is 30 years late.