Domestic Violence Will Be Added To The Violent Crime Statute On November 1st
Video Transcribed:
What is a violent crime in Oklahoma? My name is Ryan Cannonie, I am the Tahlequah criminal defense attorney for Wirth Law Office in Cherokee County and one thing I’ve seen on my Facebook, and I’m sure some of you all have seen, as well, is that there’s a lot of discussion right now about the State Question 805.
Now under the proposed State Question, they’re going to look at the list of violent crimes as of January 1st of this year. But there’s actually a change in that statute that’s coming here in less than a month on November 1st, just a few days before the election, that adds some more violent crimes to Oklahoma’s Violent Crime Registry.
So it’s kind of weird that we have the State Question that’s very specific as to what date these crimes qualify, and after that you can’t add any, but in the same year that they were trying to get it, they’re adding crimes on there.
Specifically what they’re adding is domestic violence to the violent crime statute. Currently domestic violence is not a violent crime in Oklahoma. As of November 1st, it will be classified as a violent crime.
Now when we talk violent crime, one of the things we’re talking about is not so much how it impacts the actual crime you’re charged with, but a lot of how it impacts sentencing and expungement.
If you have a violent crime, you’re not going to be able to get an expungement. You can try to get maybe a pardon on that, but expungements will not apply to you.
Same with a lot of your ability to reduce your time, your sentence. Violent crime is treated more severely. Most of these are going to be also considered 85% crimes, which means that you have to serve 85% of your sentence before you qualify for parole. That’s a separate statute and a separate list, but there’s a lot of overlap between violent crimes and 85 percenters.
Now I have seen a lot out there about what is and is not a violent crime. And instead of reading the whole statute to you, I’m going to tell you where it’s located. If you go into the Oklahoma Statutes, title 57, and look up section 571, it lists all the violent crimes.
And some of the ones I’ve seen out there on Facebook, people saying, as of right now, this is not a violent crime. Everyone be worried because this State Question’s going to throw everything crazy because all these things are not violent crimes.
I’m not really going to talk about the State Question. That’s a debate for outside of this whole arena. But what I am going to say is that a lot of those posts I’ve seen have been leaving out or actually misstating what violent crimes are in Oklahoma. For instance… and I’ve got the list over here, just because there’s a lot of them there.
Assault, battery and assault and battery, or basically all the assault and battery type crimes with a deadly or with a dangerous or deadly weapon are both listed as violent crimes. Rape 2. I saw a post at one point saying rape 2 was not a violent crime. It is. It’s right there on the list. You can’t see me pointing, but rape 2.
Kidnapping for extortion, I should say. You have rioting, inciting a riot. That’s actually become something that’s been charged more frequently due to the protests over the summer. You have aggravated trafficking.
Now your regular trafficking of a controlled drug… so that’s like 20 grams of methamphetamine, 25 pounds of marijuana… is not going to be considered a violent crime, but aggravated will be, which for methamphetamines 450 grams, and I want to say over 500 pounds of marijuana. Probably should’ve pulled that statute up. But those would be well considered a violent crime.
Eluding a peace officer when they can cause bodily injury will be considered a violent crime. There’s a whole list of them on here. And a lot of these posts I’m seeing are saying well, rape 2’s not a violent crime. Well, it is. It is right now. It will be later. It was back in January of 2020. And that’s what this whole thing got kicked off of because of State Question.
But I think it’s important that you know where you can find violent crimes listed in Oklahoma and knowing what they are. I’ll do another video talking about how enhancements work. And that was kind of where all this started, because the State Question’s dealing with the enhancement provisions and statutes.
But if you have questions about what is or is not a violent crime, if you’re worried that you’ve been charged with a violent crime, give us a call, send us a web form on tahlequahattorney.com. We can talk to you about what is and is not a violent crime in the state of Oklahoma, and how worried you should be based on your criminal charge. Violent crimes are taken a lot more seriously than a non-violent crime by DA’s offices. You’re looking a lot of times a bare minimum, a conviction, if not some jail time or prison time on that.
And like I said, there’s a change coming up November 1st. So we’ll see how that impacts us. That’s going to add several forms of domestic to the Violent Crime Registry, domestic by strangulation, domestic assault and battery, a whole bunch of domestic charges that aren’t on there right now. So if you have a question, give us a call and speak to a Tahlequah attorney.
