California ballot measures · Penal Code § 1170.18 · Health & Safety Code § 11361.8
Two ballot measures that quietly reclassified thousands of California records.
The short version
Proposition 47 (2014) turned certain drug and theft felonies into misdemeanors. Proposition 64 (2016) did the same for most cannabis offenses — and the state already applied much of that relief automatically. If either one covers your case, part of your record may already be fixed. We look before we charge you anything.
Check my record — free, 60 secondsProposition 47 (2014) turned a group of drug and theft felonies into misdemeanors. Proposition 64 (2016) did the same for most cannabis offenses — and in many cases the state has already applied the relief automatically, without the person ever knowing. Before you pay anyone to clear a record, it is worth knowing whether the law has already done part of the work.
Proposition 47 — "The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act" (2014)
Passed in November 2014, Proposition 47 reclassified a defined set of felonies as misdemeanors and created Penal Code section 1170.18, the petition that lets someone go back to court and have an old felony reclassified.
The offenses it reaches are: simple drug possession (Health & Safety Code sections 11350, 11357 and 11377); shoplifting of $950 or less (Penal Code section 459.5); petty theft of $950 or less (section 490.2); receiving stolen property worth $950 or less (section 496); forgery and bad checks of $950 or less (sections 473 and 476a); and petty theft with a prior (section 666).
Two groups are excluded: people with a prior "super strike" — the short list in Penal Code section 667(e)(2)(C)(iv), which includes murder, certain sex offenses, and a few others — and people required to register under Penal Code section 290. Firearms are also carved out of the $950 rule entirely, so grand theft of a firearm stays a felony no matter its value.
Two details matter more than most people realize. First, if you are still serving a sentence, the petition is for resentencing; if the sentence is complete, it is for redesignation — a different request, and the second one is usually the simpler of the two. Second, the original filing deadline has been extended by the Legislature, and relief remains available to most people who qualify. We confirm the current deadline as it applies to your case before anything is filed.
Proposition 64 — cannabis, and the relief you may already have
Proposition 64 legalized adult recreational cannabis in November 2016 and, through Health & Safety Code section 11361.8, allowed anyone with a prior cannabis conviction to petition to have it reduced, dismissed, or sealed — measured against what the conduct would be *today*.
Then California went further. Assembly Bill 1793 (2018) directed the Department of Justice to review every eligible cannabis conviction in the state and required prosecutors to act on them — which means a very large number of these convictions have already been reduced or dismissed by operation of law, with no petition and no notice to the person.
This is why our first step on any cannabis case is to pull the record and look. If the state already granted the relief, there is nothing to buy, and we will tell you so. Where the automatic review missed a case — and it did miss cases — the section 11361.8 petition is still available, and unlike Proposition 47 it carries no filing deadline.
Proposition 36 (2024) — what changed, and what did not
Proposition 36 took effect December 18, 2024, and it is widely misunderstood as having repealed Proposition 47. It did not. Section 1170.18 relief survives, and a person with an old qualifying conviction can still petition to have it reclassified.
What Proposition 36 did was add new felony exposure going forward. It created a repeat-theft offense (Penal Code section 666.1) with no dollar minimum, no washout period, and — importantly — priors that count even if they were misdemeanors and even if they predate the measure. It created a treatment-mandated felony for hard-drug possession with two or more prior drug convictions (Health & Safety Code section 11395), where completing the court-ordered treatment program results in the charge being dismissed and the arrest deemed never to have occurred. It also added new theft offenses and made the organized-retail-theft statute permanent.
The practical consequence for anyone considering a reduction: a Proposition 47 reduction protects your past, not your future. A felony reduced to a misdemeanor still counts as a qualifying prior under the new statutes. That is not a reason to skip the relief — it is a reason to understand exactly what it does before you rely on it.
How this fits with expungement
Reclassification and dismissal are different tools and they stack. Proposition 47 or 64 changes what the conviction is — felony to misdemeanor, or gone entirely. A dismissal under Penal Code section 1203.4 changes what happened to it — the plea is withdrawn and the case dismissed.
For the right record, the sequence matters: reclassify first where a proposition applies, then dismiss. Doing it in that order can produce a cleaner result than either step alone, and it is one of the things attorney Gaurav Bali determines from the court file rather than from a form.
One honest limit, stated plainly because people are regularly told otherwise: a Proposition 47 reduction does not restore your firearm rights. Penal Code section 1170.18 says so expressly. Neither does an expungement. The firearm question has its own answer, and it is on the next page.
If any of this describes your record, the free eligibility check will point you to the right service — or tell you the law may have already acted.
Take the free 60-second check · or call (510) 579-8608.