85% Of Prison Time Is Required for Parole Consideration
Video Transcribed: My name is Stuart Ericson. I am a lawyer in Wagoner, Oklahoma. Today’s question is, what is a DOC sentence in an Oklahoma criminal case, and the practical effects of that?
So, let’s say you do get sentenced to the Department of Corrections, either via plea agreement, again that’s an agreement between the District Attorney’s Office and the defendant to resolve the case. So, let’s say it’s 10 years, 10 years DOC. In that situation, the practical effect is, if you go to Lexington, Oklahoma, you get assessed, and then they send you off to a facility. If it’s 10 years for a nonviolent type of crime, then the question is, well, how long will I actually serve on a 10-year sentence? A defense attorney can never really answer that because it’s up to DOC.
There are certain credits that they can give, that’s in DOC parlance, even the judge won’t know. But generally speaking, you’re at least going to serve half the time, or maybe less on an offense that’s not a particularly listed violent or 85% crime. So, that does become a little bit confusing. But generally speaking, if you get a 10-year sentence, you’re not going to serve 10 years.
Now, let’s say it’s a certain offense like rape in the first degree, that is an 85% crime. Certain violent type offenses are listed as 85% crimes. So, in that case, if you get a 10-year sentence, this law requires that the person serve 85% of that time, before being eligible for parole. So, on a ten-year sentence, you’re going to serve eight and a half years before you’re eligible for parole or getting out of that sentence early in any way. So, that’s definitely something that needs to be known. So, that’s basically DOC time.
Now, when you say DOC, you’re talking about the Department of Corrections, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, and that’s going to be for felonies, for felony offenses. For misdemeanors, almost all misdemeanors, well, for all of them, the maximum is one year in the county jail. So, if you’re convicted of a misdemeanor, you’re not going to be going to DOC or prison. You’re going to be serving jail time. Those jails have rules too. You could become a trustee, help with cooking, cleaning, this or that, on certain offenses, and they may run you two for one, two days to count for… You may get two days for one served, and you may get out early. Again, those are all outside of the plea bargain, or outside of the sentence.
If you have questions about DOC and how long of a term they have, or what the status is, you can go to the website, just type in Oklahoma Department of Corrections, type in the inmate’s name, and you should see an overview, a status sheet of what they were convicted of, when, when their estimated time of release is, and get some information and also know where they’re at as well. I mean, there are multiple prison facilities in the state of Oklahoma, so if you want to know DOC stuff, you could just look it up. Oklahoma Department of Corrections, offender lookup, and type in the information and get that. So, yeah. When you’re saying DOC, you’re talking about prison time, Department of Corrections, and felonies. Then the next question, of course, is it an 85% crime or is it not?
So, if you have questions about this for a criminal defense attorney in Wagoner, reach out to me, Stuart Ericson at wagonerlawyer.com.
