Last year, the Oklahoma legislature passed a bill that Governor Mary Fallin signed into the law as the Justice Safety Valve Act. The law was intended to put common sense into sentencing by allowing Oklahoma judges discretion in deviating from mandatory minimum sentences under certain circumstances. This year, Gov. Fallin has signed another criminal justice reform bill into law that would allow similar discretion for prosecutors. HB 2472 lets prosecutors, under certain specific circumstances, file non-violent felonies as misdemeanors.
According to the new law, which will take effect November 1, 2016, allows a prosecutor to consider the following factors in filing crimes classified as felonies as misdemeanors instead:
- The criminal offense for which the person has been arrested is not listed as a criminal offense in Section 13.1 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma Statutes;
- The nature of the criminal offense;
- The age, background and criminal history of the person who committed the criminal offense;
- The character and rehabilitation needs of the person who committed the criminal offense; and
- Whether it is in the best interests of justice to file the charge as a misdemeanor offense rather than a felony offense.
Being charged with a misdemeanor rather than a felony could help a defendant in several ways. If convicted, a misdemeanor is punishable by a maximum of one year in county jail rather than a year or more in prison. Furthermore, misdemeanor convictions are often more quickly eligible for expungement than felonies, and they do not carry many of the collateral consequences of felony conviction, such as loss of gun rights.
But the new law will not just help those charged with crimes that would otherwise be felonies. It could also help alleviate prison overcrowding in Oklahoma, as non-violent "felons" will rather be convicted of misdemeanors and released from jail much more quickly.
HB 2472 is one of four criminal justice reform bills Gov. Fallin signed into law this year.
