Navigating Municipal Court: Why Legal Help Matters
Are you facing criminal charges and you’re not sure whether or not you need a lawyer? I’m Tulsa criminal attorney Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family law for over seven years now, and I want to talk to you about different types of criminal cases and whether or not you need an attorney for them.
So there are three main kinds of cases you’re going to be looking at: municipals, misdemeanors, or felonies. I’m saying municipals because they can either be traffic tickets or maybe some minor theft or something like that, but it’s handled in a completely different courthouse, so there’s a completely different set of rules.
Delving Into Municipal Cases
I’m going to talk a little bit about municipals right now, and I’ll talk later in another segment about misdemeanors and felonies. Municipal citations can get kind of tricky because the process in a municipal court is very different than in state court where you’d be looking at a misdemeanor or a felony charge.
The first thing that a lot of people get confused about, is that it takes a long time. I mean, the municipal docket is huge. As an example, today, I was in the municipal court for about six different clients. Between those six clients were 20 citations.
Out of those 20 citations, I managed to get about 13 of them dismissed, thankfully, because I was either able to negotiate something with the state or the city, or I was able to just show that there wasn’t a whole lot of evidence, or I was able to sit down and have a conversation with the prosecutor and humanize my clients rather than them just looking like another citation number.
The Importance of Legal Representation
But the ones that I wasn’t able to get settled, they got set out months. When I say months, I’m talking about their next court dates are in March and April-type months. These things take time. That’s time that a lot of people don’t have and they don’t want to waste.
The ones that I was able to get dismissed today, would have also been set out that far or longer had they not been able to get dismissed. That’s why you want an attorney in these situations. You need someone familiar with the system, who’s familiar with the players over there, who can help get you in, get you on the docket, and get your case handled significantly faster.
By faster, I’m talking about I had clients that hired me this week, like two days ago, and their cases are done. They’re either pled out or dismissed instead of having it hang over their head for months and months on end. It’s very important in these types of situations that you make sure that you have someone who knows what they’re doing instead of trying to do it yourself.
Why You Shouldn’t Navigate Legal Waters Alone
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times more. You can go represent yourself, but it’s kind of like trying to perform surgery on yourself. You can do it and you might even survive, but it’s going to be a lot more painful and a lot messier than if you had a trained professional doing it for you.
If you have questions about this or if you’re facing municipal citations and you want to get some help, I encourage you, to get some legal help. Call me, Tulsa municipal attorney Carl Birkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office, and I want to help you make law easy.
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If you’re facing any criminal charges and need expert guidance, don’t hesitate to reach out for professional help. Call us at 918-879-1681 to schedule a low-cost initial strategy session with our experienced team. Let us help you navigate the complexities of the legal system.
