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Video Transcribed: What’s a concurrent sentence in Oklahoma? What’s a consecutive sentence in Oklahoma? I’m Tulsa attorney James Wirth and we’re about to talk about consecutive and concurrent sentencing.
So when we’re talking about a concurrent sentence, or CC, and a consecutive sentence, CS, we’re talking about somebody who has multiple counts or multiple cases that are being essentially pled or sentenced together. And then once that happens, you might have a case with five different counts, might be entering a plea on all of them or found guilty on all of them.
Each of those counts can have a separate sentence. So the question becomes are you serving them at the same time or do you have to finish the sentence on one before you get to the other? And if it’s concurrent, that means that you’re serving it at the same time. So if you’ve got a one year sentence on all of them, once you complete the one year on one of them, you’ve completed on all of them.
But if the judge orders it consecutive, then you have to do the first year, then you got to go to the next Count to do the second, year and then the next count to do the third year. So it can be a huge difference in sentencing. And the interesting thing is when you have a jury trial, the jury frequently makes recommendations regarding punishment.
You can request that they do so. But what they don’t do is they don’t make a recommendation of whether they’re going to be concurrent or consecutive. That’s up to the judge.
So when you’re at formal sentencing, after you get a recommendation for a jury, that’s what you’re arguing for a lot of times.
You can argue for a lighter sentence, but it’s very rare that the judge would lower the sentence beyond what the jury recommended. The judge has the authority to do that, but it’s extremely rare.
More likely what you’re arguing for is for all of the sentences to be served concurrently because it is much more common that the judge would order them to be concurrent rather than consecutive. And that can make a huge difference in how much time somebody is actually serving. All right?
So if you’re dealing with these circumstances, then you’ve got a complicated case with multiple counts, you’re going to want this specific advice related to your circumstances from an experienced attorney. If you want to talk with one with my office, the Wirth Law Office, go to wirthlawoffice.com, or makelaweasy.com
