Tulsa Attorney Blog
How to Enforce Child Support in Oklahoma through a Passport Hold
If you've got a child support obligation that is owed to you and it is past due, there's numerous different avenues to try to collect it. You could try to garnish wages, levy bank accounts. You can put a hold on state issued driver's licenses. You can do a contempt citation. You can try to intercept taxes. Read more »How to Get a Modification Through your Ex's Tax Return and Paystubs Every Year
If their income has gone up a lot, it may maybe worthwhile to do so. If your income has gone down, you're going to know it, but you're not going to know if theirs goes up unless you do this on a regular basis. So, if you need help doing that, or have a child support question, or want to file for a modification, talk to an attorney, you can talk to somebody at my office by going to makelaweasy.com. Read more »Who Gets the Dog?
Now, the dog is not treated like a child and family courts. So, there is no best interest of the dog analysis in Oklahoma. The dog is considered a piece of property. So, first and foremost, in the context of marriage, if you bought the dog before you came into the marriage, the dog's going to be yours. On the flip side, if she bought the dog before the marriage, it's hers. It's more complicated if the dog was purchased during the marriage. Read more »One Thing to Check on Your Phone when Starting a Family Law Case
First thing when you're starting your family law case, pull up your phone, see what you have your ex in your phone as, and change that name to something appropriate and descriptive. And that way, when you're printing off screenshots of all those text messages, it's going to be something that I can present to a court and that I'm not going to be embarrassed to provide and not going to be something that undermines your case and makes you look petty. Read more »What Can Grandparent Do about Domestic Violence? Domestic Violence Pt 5
Let's say your daughter is married and has two or three children, and over the course of several years it becomes apparent that your daughter is being abused by her spouse.Unfortunately a scenario that many grandparents across the State of Oklahoma find themselves in and it's hard to know what to do. Obviously the first thing that you want to do is you try to reach out to your daughter. You try to provide them with resources and help. It might be a mistake to provide marriage counseling as the first option and it's a mistake I've seen a lot of people make. When someone is being abused physically and mentally by a partner, marriage counseling towards reconciliation is not where you need to go. Read more »Entering a Plea: Step 10 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
This stage could happen any time during the process. Anytime if an agreement is worked out with the state for a plea deal that can be entered on the next court docket, or you could even sometimes make a special setting where you added on to get that plea deal entered. Read more »The Great Escape Leaving Domestic Violence: Domestic Violence Pt 4
In family law in State of the Oklahoma, evidence of domestic abuse creates a presumption that it's not in the best interest of the child for the abusive parent to be the primary caretaker, and that it's in fact in the best interest for the abused victim to be the primary caretaker of the child. So that gives you a built-in advantage litigating custody. Read more »Sentencing: Step #9 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
Often, if you were found guilty, often on a misdemeanor, you might have credit for time served, you might not get any jail time at all, and it might just be resolved at that time, or maybe the judge does order a little bit of jail time or something. Maximum on a misdemeanor is up to a year in jail, depending on what the offense is. Sometimes the judges will sentence you immediately after the trial. Other times, they'll set it off for sentencing on another date. Read more »Trial: Step #8 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Criminal Case
Sometimes it's a bench trial. Sometimes it's a jury trial. If you're talking about a misdemeanor as a jury trial, we're looking at six jurors. And you've got a right to a jury trial so you can demand that. But courts have also found that the state has a right to a jury trial. Sometimes the defendant would waive it and the state would want a jury trial and you ended up at a jury trial. But either way, it's going to be one or the other, and essentially that means that you're going to be putting on witnesses, exhibits, get the testimony in there. And then somebody is going to be making a determination on one, whether there's guilt, meaning whether each of the elements of the offense has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and two, what the sentence should be within the range of punishment. Read more »Its All My Fault - How Violence Impacts Children: Domestic Violence Pt 3
Children encounter domestic violence visually. Normally these children, they see the the effects of domestic violence. Either they see the actual incident occur itself or they see the aftermath such as bruising on one of the partners, and the children internalize this. It creates an atmosphere of violence in the house. Read more »Pre-Trial: Stage 7 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
Generally, the pretrial is all about the preparations that need to be made before you go before a judge for a bench trial or a jury for a jury trial. So it's the judge ensuring that we've got everything set and everything's ready to go, so we don't run into issues at that time. If you are the defense or even the state, it's about getting ruling on certain evidentiary hearings. It's about determining whether we have a complete list of witnesses ready to go. It's about pretrial motions, like motions in limine, which is making rulings on admissibility. Read more »Why Doesn't She Just Leave: Domestic Violence Pt 2
"Why doesn't she just leave him," is such an unfair one is that it very much over simplifies the process of leaving your abuser, because that abuser has erected a series of supports that helps he or she to control their victim. Because as we've discussed in the previous installment, violence is a means into the end. The end that the abuser is seeking is control. Maybe it's because of their own insecurities, but they want control over their partner's everyday life to the extent that no one else has a say in that person's life and the victim is forced to rely entirely on the abuser. And that's part of why it is so difficult to escape these situations. Read more »Domestic Violence and Child Custody: Domestic Violence Pt 1
Domestic violence is an incredibly common situation that folks find themselves in, and it involves adult intimate partners perpetrating violent acts against each other, and using physical and emotional coercion to control the other party. Now, according to statistics that I'm going to cite to you from the Domestic Violence Manual for Child Welfare Specialists provided by Oklahoma DHS in March 2018... They were sourced by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence originally in a study that was done some time ago, and those statistics are pretty astounding: One in four women at some point in their life will suffer from domestic violence, which could mean stalking or sexual violence or physical assault. Read more »Motion Hearing: Stage 6 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
So you've already gone through your arraignment. You've had your status conference, tried to work out a deal with the prosecutor, nothing going there, or there's other issues that you want to address. Perhaps you already went on to make sure the discovery is complete, and then we're talking about motions. Technically, some of these motions sometimes are filed earlier, but sometimes they're filed at this time. So it's not always perfect that everything is one, two, three, four, five, six; because for number six for the motion hearing, sometimes it's earlier, sometimes it's not, depending on the type of motion. Sometimes you want to file a demurrer. And when you're filing a demurrer, essentially you're alleging that the charging document, the information, which is the formal name for the charging document, doesn't even specifically list a crime. In that case, you file a demurrer and try to get it dismissed earlier on, probably directly after the arraignment or at the time of the arraignment. Read more »Discovery Hearing: Stage #5 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
A lot of times we don't get what we're supposed to though and then it becomes a battle where you're arguing with the prosecutor over it and trying to convince the judge to dismiss the case or to provide some sort of sanction because there's materials out there that should have been provided and have not been provided and we've gotten cases dismissed on those grounds at the Allen hearing. Read more »Status Conference: Stage #4 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
A status conference comes directly after the arraignment. It's the first docket after the arraignment. It goes by different names. It seems like every court calls it something different. Could be a conference docket, sounding docket, status conference docket. But whatever you call it, pretty much the same sort of thing happens. Read more »Arraignment: Stage #3 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
At an arraignment, you've got to appear and essentially it's an opportunity where you get the formal information. That's the official charging documents. You get a copy of that, formally it would be read to you and then you would verify that the information, the identifying information, name, date of birth, social security number, those types of things are correct. That in we've got the right person here as far as who we're trying to charge. That's the official way. Read more »Bond Hearing: Stage #2 in an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
Once a case is filed in Oklahoma, arrest warrant issues, and along with that arrest warrant, usually there's a bond that's automatically determined. So we've got bond schedules in a lot of the counties, not all of them, but a lot of the largest counties have a bond schedule so that depending on what the offense is, it automatically says what to charge as the initial bond. Read more »Criminal Investigation: Stage #1 of an Oklahoma Misdemeanor Case
Most of the time in a misdemeanor case there's not much of an investigation period. So if you get pulled over for a DUI, usually arrested on the spot and then you've already got a court case going, not much of a time to do investigation. But other times there is... For example.. Read more »What are the Four Types of Pleas in Oklahoma Criminal Courts?
So the first one, obviously you should be aware of, that's the not guilty plea. When you show up for your initial appearance arraignment, I mean, it's so commonplace that you usually don't even have to say it. The judge is just going to give you a plea of not guilty and gets you to the next court date because that's the standard thing to do to start the case and start working to see if an agreement can be reached with the prosecutor if it needs to go to trial. But that is if you do need to say it, you enter a plea of not guilty, you get to the next stage. All right. The next type of plea is usually part of a plea agreement. It's a no contest plea or a nolo contendere. And what that means is that you are not admitting guilt, but you're acknowledging that there's sufficient evidence for you to be found guilty and that you're essentially requesting that the court find you guilty in order to enter a plea agreement or to enter a blind plea. So that's nolo contendere or no contest. Read more »What is a Blind Plea in an Oklahoma Criminal Case?
You see people enter not guilty, guilty, all of those types of things. But a blind plea is really a type of resolution to your case. So you can get a plea deal worked out with the state or the prosecutor and enter that as a plea deal. You can go to trial, either a bench trial or a jury trial, where the evidence is put on and force the state to either meet their burden or you be acquitted, or there's middle ground. Let's say you've got a case that you're not real comfortable going before a jury because there's a lot of risk in going to a jury. Nobody ever knows exactly for sure what a jury is going to do. Read more »Concurrent Sentence vs. Consecutive Sentence in Oklahoma Criminal Cases
So when we're talking about a concurrent sentence, or CC, and a consecutive sentence, CS, we're talking about somebody who has multiple counts or multiple cases that are being essentially pled or sentenced together. And then once that happens, you might have a case with five different counts, might be entering a plea on all of them or found guilty on all of them. Each of those counts can have a separate sentence. So the question becomes are you serving them at the same time or do you have to finish the sentence on one before you get to the other? And if it's concurrent, that means that you're serving it at the same time. So if you've got a one year sentence on all of them, once you complete the one year on one of them, you've completed on all of them. Read more »What is an Application to Revoke in Oklahoma?
All right, so first I said, "application to revoke," and then I said, "motion to revoke". Why am I changing it up? Well, that's because it gets changed up out there. Some counties call them application to revoke; other prosecutors like to file them as motions to revoke. Either way, they're the same thing, though. That's where we're dealing with somebody who's on probation that got a suspended sentence. Meaning, they were found guilty, but they weren't thrown in jail. Instead, the judge said, "Pursuant to a plea agreement..." or pursuant to the judge's ruling, that they got to serve their time outside on probation, where there's various things they have to complete, and they have to stay out of trouble. Read more »3 Options Every Defendant in Oklahoma Always Has to Resolve Their Criminal Case
Sometimes we file motions for deficits in the case, maybe they're speedy trial violations, we get them dismissed that way, then it's up to the judge whether our motions are granted. So those are ways that are up to the DA, whether they'll dismiss, whether it's up to the judge, whether they'll order dismissal, based on legal grounds that we come up with in our motions. And then there's the three that are up to the defendant. And the first one of those is plea deal. The defendant always has the option of accepting a plea deal, or not accepting a plea deal. Your attorney's going to negotiate with the state show the strengths of the defense's case, the weaknesses in the state's case, and use as much leverage in mitigation we have to get the best possible plea offer. Read more »What is a DOC Sentence in an Oklahoma Criminal Case?
DOC, we're talking about jail time or we're talking about jail time in the penitentiary. If the sentence is over a year, then you're looking at doing penitentiary time. If it's under a year on a misdemeanor, it could be county time. But, that usually comes up either pursuant to a plea deal in order to avoid a larger sentence. Sometimes a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. It's a blind plea and you get sentenced by the judge, without a plea agreement from the state for jail time or you go to jury trial and the default on jury trial when the jury recommends punishment and says 10 years, you don't really get the option for 10 years deferred, 10 years to spend in the jail. When the jury says 10 years, it means 10 years in, which is 10 years DOC time. That's the way that that works. As far as DOC time. Read more »
