They Have Differences in Prison Time and Fines
Video Transcribed: What is a felony as opposed to a misdemeanor? Hi, I’m Oklahoma City lawyer, Ty Smith, with Wirth Law Office.
I get this question a lot from people who have never watched Law & Order, or any other criminal shows, and of course have never been convicted of a crime themselves, which is great. Glad that you are very naive to the criminal justice system. That’s good. But it is useful to know what a felony and a misdemeanor are.
A misdemeanor is a crime that is punishable by a maximum of a year in prison, no more than a year in prison, or a substantial fine of some type. A felony is a crime that is punishable by more than a year in prison. That’s kind of the big dividing factor between the two.
Some examples of felonies are, of course, manslaughter, rape, and assault with a deadly weapon. These are crimes that have a substantial threat to lives and/or property. Misdemeanors are things like trespassing, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and things like that, that we don’t want. We don’t want vandals. We don’t want trespassers, but not exactly the biggest threat to society, so that’s the dividing line between the two.
Below a misdemeanor, another possible outcome to your crime, to a criminal conviction, is probation, which has no jail time, but requires some type of supervision with a parole officer, someone you got to check in with, maybe drug testing, have to do certain classes. Still, typically those can be a part of either a felony conviction near the back end after you’ve served your time or as a part of your misdemeanor conviction after maybe you’ve served some jail time, maybe you’ve paid a fine and you need some … Then there’s a probation period in which you have to essentially continue to report to the state that you’re getting better at whatever they charged you with.
That’s the big dividing line between the two. If you were being charged with either a felony, a misdemeanor, or something like that.
If you have more questions that I didn’t answer in this video, please feel free to contact me, a criminal defense attorney in Oklahoma. I’m at theoklahomacityattorney.com, and I would be glad to talk to you and hopefully make this process as easy to understand as possible.
