There Are Three Main Ways for Sentencings to Be Decided
Video Transcribed: Hi, I’m Stuart Ericson, an Oklahoma attorney, and today’s question is, how is sentencing for a criminal offense decided? So how is my sentence determined?
Of course, there are three main ways. The first and most common way is a plea bargain. Basically, the district attorney’s office of a county will say, “Hey, if you plead guilty, here’s what we will offer you. We’ll offer you three years probation, pay back restitution, and pay fines and costs.” All right. So if the person charged decides that’s what they want to do, then that is how your sentence is determined. It is by agreement between the defendant and his attorney and the district attorney’s office, and then the judge signs off on it. They basically approve the plea bargain, which normally they do.
Actually, they don’t have to. So that could be another factor. But by and large, in the majority of cases, the sentence is determined by a plea bargain or an agreement between the parties. The other way short of a jury trial to get a sentence is to do what’s called a blind plea. Let’s say there is no plea agreement. Let’s say the state of Oklahoma, on a burglary first-degree charge, which has a range of seven years to 20 years, the DA’s office offers you 18 years in prison and you’re like, “No, I’m not going to do that.” So at that point, your options are to do a jury trial or to do what’s called a blind plea.
Now, a blind plea is when you plead guilty to the court, to the judge and you’re cutting the DA out, in essence, “We have no agreement, but we’re still going to plead guilty. And judge, we’re going to ask you to sentence us.” So in that case, generally, there is a pre-sentence investigation done. The Department of Corrections does that. They look at your background, your criminal history, look at all sorts of factors, and that is given to the defense attorney and to the state and to the judge, and that can be reviewed. And then at the time of sentencing, as your defense attorney, I would argue for whatever sentence we would want, say, we think, “Yeah, this is such a minimal burglary that we think we get probation, we have no criminal history.”
So the defense would argue, “Judge, this is what we want from it.” And then the state would go, “No, Judge, we think this is serious for reasons X, Y, and Z. We want that 18 years in prison.” And then at that point in time, you wait for the judge to deliver that sentence, and it’s blind because you’re blind to it. You don’t know what you’re going to get. You’re hoping, of course, to get something better than the DA’s offer. Otherwise, you would never do it. And also, usually, in a blind plea, it’s a case where you don’t want to go to a jury trial. Many people are like, “I do not want a jury trial.” So this is an option. It’s a scary one. I’ve seen it go both ways. So that is another option.
The last option, if there’s no plea bargain, there’s no blind plea, there’s no dismissal of the case, the last recourse is to go to a jury trial. So assuming there’s a guilty verdict where there would be a sentence, the sentence, after a jury trial, the jury gets all of the jury instructions. And then there are forms at the end, “Is this person guilty or not guilty? If they are guilty, the punishment range, say, is seven years to 20. What is the sentence?” And let’s say they say 10 years. So after the jury trial, that would be known, but now the judge is still, by and large, going to set you for a sentencing date in the future because the jury’s sentence is a recommendation. It’s not set in stone. It’s ultimately up to the judge.
So upon the sentencing date, the judge will sentence you. Theoretically, they could sentence you anywhere within the punishment range. But by and large, in Oklahoma, judges do not mess with what the jury recommends. And by and large, they will follow it. Are there exceptions to that? Of course, there are exceptions, but by and large, if you get convicted by a jury and the jury says 15 years in prison, that’s what the judge is going to give you. The other factor is if there are multiple counts. If there are three counts and the jury says 10 for this, five for that, and five for that, more likely than not, the judge is going to order those to be served consecutively.
So it’s going to be the 10. And when that sentence is done, then it’ll be the five. When that’s done, then it’ll be five. So really, you’re getting a 20-year sentence. And a plea bargain, usually, the one number you get will all be run concurrently. So let’s say in a plea bargain, your offer was 10 years for all counts, you would just serve the 10 years. So those are the ways to be sentenced in Oklahoma.
If you have any questions for a criminal defense lawyer in Wagoner County, reach out to me, Stuart Ericson at wagonerlawyer.com.
