Welcome to The Newsfeed.

Washington State officials say the state likely owes tens of millions of dollars to people who had their drug possession charges vacated following the Blake decision.

They say that's because so few of those previously convicted have gone through the refund process for their court costs.

In 2021, the Washington Supreme Court ruled in the Blake decision, which led to the overturning of Washington's felony possession drug law.

Since then, the courts have vacated tens of thousands of drug possession convictions.

A lot of folks just don't know that they paid anything.

A lot of these cases are old.

They are 20, 25, 30 years old.

The Administrative Office of the Court's chief financial officer, Chris Stanley, oversees the Blake Refund Bureau.

He says once someone has their conviction vacated, they often also qualify for reimbursement for what they paid in fees, fines and other court costs related to that charge.

Maybe this is a conviction from 1994, like they don't know what they paid and they can't remember paying anything.

So they just get their conviction vacated and they they're good.

State data shows that about 94% of people who have a vacated charge are owed refunds and haven't received them.

Stanley estimates these folks are owed about 33 million collectively.

There have only been about 6500 refunds issued in the last five years.

It is this piece of money that doesn't by any means acknowledge all of the trauma and the harm and the loss as a result of that conviction.

But it is something, and it's tangible.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed.

Your destination for non-profit Northwest News.

Go to Cascade PBS.org for more.