Tulsa Attorney Blog
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 »What is an Application to Accelerate in Oklahoma?
When you're on a deferred sentence and the prosecutor is alleging that you violated your probation, they file an application to accelerate alleging that. And then once they file an application to accelerate, they have an affidavit that goes with it and that goes to the judge to sign an arrest warrant just like a brand new case. You get an arrest warrant out and then you're arrested on that. You come before the court, you're entitled to a hearing fairly quick on those, but you can waive that if you want additional time to prepare. And you want to find out what exactly they're alleging, that'll be in the application and then negotiate something out. Read more »What is a Split Sentence in an Oklahoma Criminal Case?
A split sentence is a combination between a suspended sentence and a DOC sentence or a jail time sentence. So you might have a 7/3 split, and that would be where you're going to serve seven years in and then you get three years probation. Or, a 5/5 split or whatever the case may be. Sometimes if you're doing just a little bit of jail time, what they may say in the sentencing is you've got a "five years all suspended but the first 30 days", and then you do 30 days in and the rest is suspended. Read more »What is a Suspended Sentence in Oklahoma?
So it's similar in some respects to the deferred because you're on probation for a period of time and you stay out of jail. But the main difference is with the suspended sentence, you get a conviction. So you work out a plea deal with the state, or maybe you do a blind plea and it gets sentenced by the judge. Either case, if you get a suspended sentence, from that moment that you're sentenced, you are guilty of that offense and you have it on your record. So, if it's a misdemeanor, you've got a misdemeanor conviction. If it's a felony, now you're a convicted felon if you weren't before.
Read more »What is a Continued Sentence in Oklahoma?
A deferred sentence is where you're on probation for a period of time and then it's dismissed and expunged. A continued sentence is a little bit different. So in a continued sentence, you've reached an agreement with the prosecutor and pursuant to that deal, you enter a plea and then you're put on probation for a period of time. Read more »Why Did the Police Officer Lower the Speed on my Traffic Ticket?
You get pulled over and then the officer tells you, you were going one speed, but he writes the ticket for a lesser speed. It makes you think, what's he hiding? Did he lie about me going faster? And that's why he's writing it for a less amount. Did he maybe do the radar at one speed and then he did it again, it was a lower speed and now he can't use the old one. What's going on here? Read more »What is a Deferred Prosecution Agreement in Oklahoma?
So there's usually two ways about a deferred prosecution agreement that it gets worked out. Sometimes it happens before a criminal case is filed. So there's an investigation going on and there's negotiations going on with the prosecutor. This happens a lot of times with bogus checks. So if a bogus check gets turned into the DA's office, a lot of times they'll contact the person and they workout a payment plan on it. Read more »Never DON'T Sign Your Traffic Ticket!
All right, so you get pulled over for some sort of traffic offense and you're kind of upset about it and the officer's going over with you and you dispute what happened. They say you're going this fast, you know you weren't and you want to contest it and you can't wait to get into court. So you're in that frame of mind and the officer asks you, "Why don't you sign here on the ticket?" Sometimes people's gut reaction is, "Well, I don't agree with that. I don't want to sign the ticket. I want to contest this. I want to go to court." And I've had people call me after the fact, so angry with the way the officer responded when they refuse to sign, where they're threatening to take them to jail and all that and they're very angry with the way the officer handled it and I have to kind of explain to it. Read more »What is a Deferred Sentence in Oklahoma Courts?
So first thing about deferred sentence is you don't want to confuse them with a deferred prosecution. In a deferred prosecution, that's just a deal between you and the prosecutor, the defendant and the prosecutor. The courts not really involved in that. With a deferred sentence, that's more formal and it's done with the court and court's approval. What is a deferred sentence? That is essentially..... Read more »When You Don't Need a Lawyer for Your Speeding Ticket in Oklahoma
So, first off, if you get a speeding ticket, first thing we want to find out is, are you a CDL holder? Do you have a commercial driver's license? If you do, you're going to want to have an attorney, because even for minor infractions, even ones that wouldn't cause a regular driver to have problems, even ones that wouldn't cause it to be reported to their insurance, it does get reported if it's a CDL, and it can cause big problems, not just for you and your license, but for your employer and your employer's insurance. Read more »What is a Deferred Sentence Expungement in Oklahoma?
A deferred sentence is where you get a deal worked out with the prosecutor to where if you plead guilty, you're put on probation for a period of time, you have to jump through some hoops and when you come back to court, the case will be dismissed and expunged. Read more »What is The Maximum Marriage Length for Annulment in Oklahoma?
Regardless of how long you've been married, there's no red line on it. There's no definitive determination based on that. So when can you get an annulment? It's not about how long you've been married, it's about the circumstances leading into the marriage. Did one of the parties lack capacity to get married? Was there a fraudulent inducement into the marriage? You have to have facts like that in order to be eligible for an annulment. Read more »Consummation of a Marriage & Annulment: Does It Matter?
A lot of people think as long as the marriage hasn't been consummated, that you're eligible to get an annulment. That as long as you don't do that, no matter how long you've been there in the marriage, you can go ahead and file for that annulment, that that's the main factor that judges look at or that the law requires, and unfortunately I'm here to tell you it's not. It doesn't matter. It's somewhat irrelevant. Read more »Don't Just Pay that Oklahoma Traffic Ticket! It Could Cost Your License!
So first off, pretty much every traffic citation you have, that you could receive in Oklahoma, has a point value assigned to it. And if those points add up to 10 points within five years, you lose your license and I can give you some examples of each of the levels of those. Read more »Did You Accidentally Get Married at H&R Block, Without Knowing It?
Common law marriage exists and is live and well in Oklahoma. So how do you enter into one? Sometimes it's very simple. Basically what the law says is that you have to have an agreement to be married and you have to cohabitate. There's no specific amount of time you have to be cohabitating, and the agreement doesn't have to be written down or anything. Read more »3 Most Common Destination Weddings Seen by Oklahoma Divorce Attorneys
If you're a divorce attorney, you need to file a divorce petition, which we do frequently, one of the things we have to list on there is the county of the marriage. So we get to see who's having destination weddings. And it's interesting to see what type of destination weddings come into our office and what we file. So what do you think the most common destination is? I'm about to tell you Read more »Divorce vs. Legal Separation in Oklahoma: What are the Differences?
One of the big differences, there's two primary big differences, but the first one has to do with jurisdiction. In order to file for divorce in Oklahoma, you have to be a resident for six months of the state, and a resident of the county for 30 days to file in that county court. That's for the divorce requirements. Read more »
