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Video Transcribed: Gone, but not forgotten. What happens to all those state charges you had after you have got a McGirt or Hogner motion through and are now going into tribal court. Hi, my name is Ryan Cannonie. I’m a Tahlequah attorney with the Wirth Law office in Tahlequah. And I’ve seen some confusion on this. First off in which I did a video about it where the tribe and the Feds and the State, “How can each of these charge me at different times?
They were dismissed by State. I shouldn’t be charged again.” That whole separate sovereign issue is covered in a different video. But one of the issues that have come up with all of this is, “Well, all those old cases from the State, they’re gone. They were dismissed. They don’t matter anymore.” Well, yes and no. They are gone legally speaking. You either can get them expunged, or they’re marked as dismissed, so you have no convictions.
But it’s not like everyone forgot about them. And specifically, it’s not like the prosecutors in the AG’s office forgot about them. They’re very well aware if you have any criminal past history convictions or charges, and this is being used whenever they look at what type of plea offers to give.
I was a prosecutor for over seven years. It’s what I did. I looked through someone’s criminal history, previous charges, convictions, deferments, what probation they had received, what alternative courts, prison sentences and used that to help me figure out what type of plea offer I should extend to them or them and their attorney.
The same thing is being done with the AG’s office, especially within the Cherokee Nation. They’re looking over past charges, past convictions even if they’ve been dismissed to decide should be given a first offender kind of status or are you a repeat offender status to decide fine and costs, defer, probation, conviction/probation, prison, alternative court, what type of plea offer to give you.
Now, I’ve also had some people ask, “Well, I have all these other cases. I got my” we call them McGirt motions or Hogner motions. But it’s really a post-conviction relief or a motion to dismiss, one of the two. “I got an attorney who did that for me. I got one state case dismissed, but I have several other cases in another county or even several other cases in that same county that haven’t been dismissed yet. What happens to those?”
Well, you’re going to have to file another motion to get those all dismissed as well. And you can get them dismissed. The fact you’ve got one case that shows your Native American status and per the McGirt case law decision that you qualify to get those cases dismissed, or I say, McGirt. It could be a Hogner decision depending on what tribe you’re talking about.
But once you get one case dismissed, it’s easier to get the rest dismissed. You can go through and get all of your cases dismissed. You can try to go ahead and get them expunged if you want, but you still have to do it as a process. This isn’t usually just done for you.
Most of the counties and DAs aren’t just going through dismissing stuff just because, so a lot of times, it takes a little work on your part. If you have questions about this, if you’re looking for an attorney to help, then please give us a call.
