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Video Transcribed: Deferred sentence expungements in Oklahoma, what you need to know. I’m Tulsa Criminal Defense Attorney James Wirth, and I’m about to explain the 991(c) expungement. That’s the deferred sentence expungement.
All right, so when you go to court and a plea deal is worked out, there’s many different types of sentences that can occur. One is a deferred sentence. What happens when you enter into a deferred sentence is that although you plead guilty or no contest, the judge withholds a finding of guilt.
Then passes the case to have sentencing at a later date. During that period of time in between, which is up to a maximum of seven years, you’re on probation. The court can pass that based on whatever the plea agreement is for one year, two years, 18 months, however long that is.
The first part of it can be supervised. Usually the rest of it after 18 months, two years, is not supervised, but there’s generally some hoops you have to jump through while you’re on probation. Stay out of trouble, some may have to do community service, pay court costs, pay probation fees, all of that.
The carrot at the end of that particular stick is going to be that you’re supposed to be eligible for expungement. When you do a deferred sentence, some courts give you a deferred sentence review date at the end of that sentence. Some do not.
If you do get that deferred sentence review date at the end, you show up. You show that you have complied with the obligations of your probation, haven’t got any new cases, no violations. Then at that point, the court allows you to withdraw your plea, then dismisses the case, and expunges it. What you need to know is that that expungement, the deferred sentence expungement, the 991(c) expungement expunges the court case, but it does not expunge your arrest record.
After that, if somebody pulls a background check that pulls OSBI, it’s going to show that you were arrested. They’re going to be asking you some questions. You want to do more than just the deferred sentence expungement.
What if the court doesn’t set you for a review date? Well, complete that probation time, and then you can file a motion for the deferred sentence expungement. Get it set on the court’s docket, show them you completed everything, and request that it’d be dismissed and expunged. If you need help with that, contact an attorney.
Once you get that done, you need to go to the next level and request a Section 18 expungement. You have to wait a period of time to do that. If it was a misdemeanor deferred, you have to wait one year after you complete the deferred sentence and get the case dismissed and expunged. If it’s a felony, you have to wait five years to request that the Section 18 complete expungement.
Another thing you need to know about the expungement through a deferred sentence or a 991(c) expungement is that when it’s expunging the court record, it only expunges certain things. If you get a deferred sentence on every count in that case, then none of it’s going to show.
Sometimes we see these circumstances where somebody has a felony charge, a misdemeanor charge, and a traffic charge. Sometimes they just pay the fine on the traffic charge, and then they get the deferred on the misdemeanor and the felony. Once they get the deferred sentence expungement, they just erase those parts of the docket sheet.
But guess what? The case number doesn’t changed. It’s still going to show up with a CF case number. It’s just going to show count one, two are blank, and it’s just going to start with the count three. Well, anybody that knows what they’re doing, looks at that and say, “Oh, this was originally a felony. Oh, the count one and two are completely missing. We never start with count three.” They’re going to know that something happened.
You’re going to be asked some questions. You want to be strategic about how you enter a deferred sentence and put it on every count on there. So that when you get the deferred sentence expungement, it takes care of the entire court case. You’re going to want to follow up as soon as you can to get the Section 18 expungement, to get the arrest record expunged.
This topic can be a little bit confusing. If you have any questions about your specific circumstances, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney. If you want to talk with me, you can go to makelaweasy.com. I can see what the best course of action is for you. Again, go to that website, makelaweasy.com.
