You Could Get a Dismissal without Prejudice
Video Transcript: What happens if you get a moving violation and you have a CDL? Can you plea bargain that? My name is Brian L. Jackson, I am an attorney in Tulsa with Wirth Law Office, and I want to talk about moving violation tickets and CDLs.
This kind of creates a special problem. If you have a standard Class D driver’s license, that’s what most of us have if you’re not driving truck or you’re not driving a bus or something, those types of licenses, many times, if it’s a first infraction or it’s something minor, there’s ways to keep that from showing up on your driving record. Usually, assuming it’s not a bad infraction, you can many times convince the prosecutor to give you a deferred sentence.
Deferred sentences are not convictions. It doesn’t go against your record. Those are not available to CDL drivers. And the reason is, is there’s a federal law, or several federal laws, that apply to this situation where, basically, it’s what’s called anti-masking laws. Anti-masking laws prohibit, under federal law, anyone who issues a ticket, whether it’s a municipal court or whether it’s municipal authority, or whether it’s county authority, state authority, from taking actions on tickets on CDL license holders that would mask the actual offense. So it makes it a little bit tricky.
Now, some jurisdictions in Oklahoma, and the federal law does allow this, it does allow the dismissal without prejudice. And refiling of a different charge is not a moving violation, provided that it’s an accurate description of the incident. So it’s not entirely impossible to plea bargain these tickets, but it gets a little trickier. And some courts, some prosecutors will do that and some will not.
If you can’t do that, then usually, your choices are going to be as follows: you can pay the fine and take the points, or you go to trial. In either case, if you are a CDL holder, because this is your livelihood, because it’s important, it is to your benefit to have counsel, because there may be other ways to defeat that ticket. And because your plea bargaining options are limited and it’s your livelihood, you do need good counsel. And one place you can get good Oklahoma CDL Ticket lawyer is at makelaweasy.com, and we’ll help you out.
