Defending Your Rights, Saving Your Time
Video Transcribed: You don’t have to appear in court for a criminal misdemeanor arraignment in Oklahoma if you have an attorney. I’m Oklahoma lawyer James Wirth, and that’s a topic that we’re dealing with here, and my office is always trying to make law easy.
One way that we do that is we always appear for our clients at misdemeanor arraignments because the law allows that. That allows our clients to go to work rather than take off work or school in order to be in court.
The authority for that is sometimes we have to show this to judges in certain courts where they want everybody there at the arraignment. And I show no. The law says the defendant does not have to appear for a misdemeanor arraignment. The defense counsel can appear for them. That is Title 22, Section 452. And what it says, if the indictment or information is for a felony, the defendant must be personally present. But if misdemeanor only, his personal appearance is unnecessary, and he may appear upon the arraignment by counsel.
So if you are charged with a misdemeanor and you have an attorney, that attorney can appear for you at the misdemeanor. You just want to make sure that you follow up to find out when that next court date is because you’re going to want to be present for that. And that’s just one way that we can make things easier for our clients by making that appearance for them.
Since not a lot happens at the arraignment, we enter a plea of not guilty. We make sure we have a copy of the information of the formal charges and make sure the name is properly done on there. And then we get that next court date, which is more of an opportunity to start working on the case, getting discovery, finding the facts, negotiating on a plea if possible, and prepping for trial.
But for that first court date, if it’s a misdemeanor, you can have an attorney appear for you. If you’ve got questions about this or anything else related to Oklahoma criminal law, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney about that privately and confidentially. To get that scheduled with a Tulsa misdemeanor attorney at my office, you can go online to MakeLawEasy.com.
