Crime Conviction Process Part V: What Types of Sentencing Are There in Oklahoma?

Now, we are to the sentencing portion. Either we’ve pled guilty, or we’ve been found guilty in a trial, but either way, guilty is the way we’re going. There are three different paths we can follow here. There’s your typical sentencing, which is, we’ll talk about it in a moment. It’ll take two seconds. There are deferred sentencing and suspended sentencing.

Normal sentencing is pretty vanilla. You’re going to go to prison. That’s it. Yeah. If we have accepted the district attorney’s plea deal, and you’ve pled guilty, you can get what’s called a deferred sentence. Which is where the judge accepts your guilty plea but puts off sentencing. The court’s going to ask you to do certain things, and if you comply with what the court wants you to do, then they’ll dismiss your case.

The charge isn’t going to appear on your court record. And you can be asked to pay all the court costs, some fines, and fees. They can ask you to be monitored by a probation officer, and go to classes to better yourself. And of course, don’t break the law during this probationary period. And if you do all those things, it’s wiped, it’s good. But if you pick up a new charge, you may be sentenced or go to jail, get prison time, and you’re going in. It’s a deferred sentence.

Now, to be clear, even if you complete your deferred probation, you stay squeaky clean there, Boy Scout, your arrest will still appear on OSBI records until that’s expunged, but not going to jail. So that’s good.

The last one is the suspended sentence, where you are still convicted of the crime, you’re found guilty, but the judge decides they’re going to put you on probation, or at least you’re going to do part of your sentence in and part of it out. While you’re on suspended time, it’s sometimes called paper time, you don’t have to go to prison as long as you satisfy what the court says. And there could be two types of a suspended sentences, there could be supervised and unsupervised. Supervised requires you typically report to a probation officer.

Of course, don’t break the law, any type. Unsupervised, you don’t have to report to anybody, but you just obey the general rules of your probation. And of course, once more, don’t break the law while you’re under these probationary periods. If you fail, you can be sentenced for the entirety of the sentencing, jail or prison time. Okay. So it’s really important that you walk that line.

That’s the entire process as simple as we can put it. We certainly didn’t cover everything. So if you have any questions, or if you have a loved one that’s going through this process, and you want to talk to someone about it, please feel free to call me. I would love to talk to you about this. This is what I eat, and sleep. This is what I breathe.

If you have questions for a criminal defense lawyer in Oklahoma City, feel free to call us and reach out to me. I am at theoklahomacityattorney.com. It’s probably the easiest way to find my contact information. And I look forward to talking to you.