Understanding Misdemeanor Proceedings: A Simple Breakdown
Are you facing misdemeanor charges and you’re not sure how this case is going to proceed? My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m a Tulsa criminal law attorney with Wirth Law Office in Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing criminal law for about seven years and I want to help you to make law easy by telling you a little bit about what a misdemeanor case is and how it’s likely going to proceed for you.
Misdemeanors vs. Felonies: Key Differences
Misdemeanors and felonies are different in a couple of different ways. Misdemeanors, the biggest difference with them versus a felony, is you’re going to be trying the case in front of one judge, most likely. So let’s break it down. It’s a one-act play. Beginning of the play, you show up. Your Honor, I’m not guilty.
In a not-guilty plea, the court’s going to set you for what’s called an Allen hearing or for a sounding docket hearing. Sometimes the courts will set you straight for a sounding docket or the docket to say, are we going to plea it or are we going to try it?
Understanding the Hearing Process
More often than not though, even at that docket, you’re going to show up and if you haven’t been able to negotiate something with the state, you’re going to show up and say, hey, here’s the deal. We need to do some discovery. We need to figure out what the state has. We need to figure out what evidence they’re going to present.
We need to see what facts they’re working with. That’s when the court’s going to set you up for an Allen hearing if they haven’t already. An Allen hearing is quite literally the purpose of it is to see whether or not discovery is complete. You’ll show up at that hearing. You’ll either say, yes, Your Honor, we have everything that the state is required to give us. We’re ready to set it for disposition.
Preparing for Disposition
At dispo is going to be when you either plea it or set it for trial. And you may not be ready at that first Allen setting. I mean, just recently I had a case, we were set for an Allen hearing and I’m going through our discovery, and in the course of going through the discovery, I see that the state’s referencing video footage that they were able to review that we didn’t have.
At that point, your lawyer is going to say, hey, judge, I know we’re set to determine whether or not discovery is complete. It’s not complete. There are references to video footage that we don’t have. We need to be able to see it to determine whether or not this is even something that we want to pursue. So it’s not the end of the world if discovery isn’t done in that first setting.
Entering a Plea or Going to Trial
That being said, you don’t want to just drag it out. The court’s only going to give you maybe one or two more tries to get discovery completely done. And then they’re going to tell you to fish or cut bait. So after Allen, you’re going to be at disposition. At this point, you should know whether or not you’re taking it to trial whether you’re going to enter a negotiated plea whether you’re just not going to, or whether you’re going to enter a plea without a negotiation.
Sometimes the state’s not willing to give you a recommendation that you want to work with, but you don’t want to take it to trial either. At that point, you can still enter a blind plea. Essentially, that’s you pleading guilty of throwing yourself at the mercy of the court for your sentence saying, hey, we admit that we did something wrong, but the state’s not willing to work with us. We’re just pleading for mercy here.
Low-Cost Initial Strategy Session: Get the Legal Guidance You Need
Either way, though, that’s basically where the play ends. You’re either going to negotiate a plea at that point, a blind plea at that point, or you’re going to be setting it for a jury trial or a bench trial. If you have any questions about this, or if you’re just not sure what to do, if you’ve got a hearing coming up, please feel free to give our Tulsa misdemeanor attorneys a call. My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help you make law easy. Reach out for a low-cost initial strategy session at 918-879-1681. Thank you.
