If you have any felonies on your record or if you have any pending cases, this is not going to be applicable to you. You want to look for a different video. So, there’s multiple grounds to get a misdemeanor expunged. Expungement law in Oklahoma is relatively simple. Most of it is all included within one statute.

If you’ve got multiple convictions that are related to the same conduct at the same time, those may under the law count as one conviction. Talk to an attorney about that if you fall under those circumstances. If those cases we’re talking about are based on a deferred sentence, deferred sentence is not a conviction unless it’s accelerated to a conviction. If it’s a dismissed charge, you get charges filed against but they’re dismissed, not a conviction, doesn’t count here.

‘m Tulsa attorney James Wirth, and I’m about to explain the 991(c) expungement. That’s the deferred sentence expungement. 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.

A couple of years ago in Oklahoma, we had state question 780, and that, when it passed and became law, re-classified many crimes that were previously felonies as misdemeanors. But we still had a lot of people out there that were previously convicted of those crimes that have felony convictions. So it came later; House Bill 1269 allowed some relief to some of those people. So first off, let’s talk about 780 and what it did. So one of the biggest things it did is that it changed possession of CDs, that’s a controlled and dangerous substance, essentially illegal narcotics, it changed all of those that were felonies to misdemeanors.

If you’re charged with a felony, you go to trial and ultimately you’re found not guilty, at that point, that triggers the statute. You’re eligible to get it expunged, you can file a section 18 complete expungement, that expunges both the arrest record and the court case. Under Oklahoma law, once you have a section 18 expungement by the law, those events never occurred. So the next situation we’re talking about, is if it’s overturned on appeal. So if you’re convicted at trial on a felony, and then it goes up on appeal and then it’s reversed, and the conviction goes away at that point based on it being reversed and overturned, then you’re eligible under the statute to get a complete expungement. Next opportunity for that, if you’ve got a felony charges that were dismissed is under subsection three, and that deals with no … Well, I should say this is a little bit different. Charges are not filed under these circumstances. So this is if you’re arrested.

The first thing you need to know, something that a lot of people don’t know is that when you successfully complete your probation on a deferred sentence and go back before the court, and the court finds you successfully completed, and the court allows you to withdraw your plea of guilty and the court dismisses the case and expunges it, that that expungement actually only expunges the court case, does not expunge your arrest record.