What Does a Conviction Have in Common with Suspended Oklahoma Sentence?

Video Transcribed: What is a suspended sentence in Oklahoma? I’m Oklahoma attorney James Wirth, and I’m about to talk to you about suspended sentences. So there’s a lot of different types of sentences that you can get. We talked about a deferred prosecution agreement. Talked about a deferred sentence, a continued sentence.

Moving up in severity, we’re dealing with the suspended sentence. So it’s similar in some respects to the deferred because you’re on probation for a period of time and you stay out of jail. But the main difference is with the suspended sentence, you get a conviction.

So you work out a plea deal with the state, or maybe you do a blind plea and it gets sentenced by the judge. Either case, if you get a suspended sentence, from that moment that you’re sentenced, you are guilty of that offense and you have it on your record. So, if it’s a misdemeanor, you’ve got a misdemeanor conviction. If it’s a felony, now you’re a convicted felon if you weren’t before.

But you don’t have to go to jail. You get to be on probation, you get to be out. But similar to the deferred sentence, there are rules and conditions of probation that you have to comply with. Usually that’s court costs.

That could be checking in with supervision, with whether it’s DA or DOC. It could be restitution, could be work hours, could be various programs. A lot of different things you have to do, stay out of bars, stay away from felons.

There’s different rules that they put in there specific to the case sometimes. But if you continue to do what you’re supposed to do, you don’t get any new offenses, then that essentially for the time of the suspended sentence, once that’s over with, you’re done.

So if it’s a two year suspended sentence, you stay out of trouble for two years and then you’re done. The sentence is over. But it’s still a conviction on your record. Once a certain period of time goes by, you can look at doing an expungement to get that resolved. But until then, you’re convicted on it.

So, to sum things up, suspended sentence is a conviction, but you don’t go to jail. That’s the way it is. If you have any questions about that and you have a case pending that you’d like to talk to an attorney about, I’m sure we’ve got an attorney that could talk to you about it. Find out how to contact us, go to makelaweasy.com.