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If the state is seeking to revoke your suspended sentence or accelerate your deferred sentence, you want to hire the best Tulsa criminal defense attorney. Call the Cale law office at 918-277-4800 to schedule your free initial consultation. After reviewing your case with you, attorney Stephen Cale will also provide you with a free defense strategy plan to take home with you.
In October 2014 the state filed an application to revoke suspended sentence against a man named Smiley. The application alleged that Smiley failed to report as directed, pay supervision fees, pay court costs, and committed the new crime of domestic abuse by strangulation. The defendant was arraigned on the application about two weeks later and waived his right to have heard within 20 days. In December that year, the state filed an amended application by including the allegation that the defendant used illegal drugs, failed to complete a rehabilitation program, and committed another crime of preventing a witness from testifying. Find the best Tulsa criminal defense attorney you can trust.
After hearing in January, the District Judge found that the defendant had violated the rules and conditions of his probation revoked the defendant’s remaining suspended sentence in full. The defendant argued on appeal that his due process rights were violated when the court failed to reign him following the filing of the amended application to revoke. As a consequence, he argued, he was denied the opportunity to stand on his statutory right to have a hearing within 20 days.
The defendant argued that the revocation should be dismissed because the state did not arraign him on the amended application to revoke. He argued that while he did waive the 20 day requirement with regard to the first application, he did not waive it with regard to the amended application. Smiley claimed that the state was required to write him on the amended application and to secure his waiver of the 20 day requirement again or else hold a hearing on the amended application within 20 days of its filing. Searching for the best Tulsa Criminal defense attorney is easy.
The District Court loses jurisdiction of an application to revoke when the hearing is not held within 20 days from the entry of a not guilty plea unless there is a valid waiver of the timely hearing. The record on appeal showed that the defendant was arraigned on the application to revoke, entered a plea of not guilty and waived the 20 day requirement. Therefore, the 20 day period was not violated, said Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale.
When a probationer is waive the requirement that a revocation hearing be held within 20 days, and an amended application is filed, the probationer must be given sufficient notice and be allowed to respond amount of time to prepare a defense. Double jeopardy protects against multiple punishments for the same offense. It prohibits a court from imposing a greater punishment for single offense than authorized by the legislature.
In deciding whether multiple charges violate double jeopardy, a reviewing court will look to see whether each charge of requires proof of something that the other does not. Two distinct acts of the same offense carried out against the same victim will not violate double jeopardy where the acts are interrupted and separate in time. As far as making obscene or threatening phone call, it will be deemed to have been committed to either the place of origin or the place of reception.
The court looked at the evil to be remedied as set forth in the statute. It also looked at the consequences of any particular interpretation. It said that the statute at issue is designed to criminalize the use of electronic communications to harass, intimidate, threaten, terrify, or make remarks which are obscene or indecent. It protects victims from unwanted calls from a stranger with remarks which, in that context, qualify as filthy or indecent.
The defendant in the appellate case made numerous calls of an indecent nature of a period of six months. He did so even after being explicitly told to stop by both the victim and her mother. He also did it knowing that the victim was a minor. Because the acts occurred on separate occasions he was charged with three counts.
The defendant communicated through email and cell phone text messaging within individual he believed to be a 14-year-old female. Exchange communiqué the defendant’s sexual interest in the minor. He was unaware that he was actually interacting with a sheriff’s deputy. Ultimately, the defendant arranged a meeting with the so-called minor in a movie theater.
He parked his car on the dark side of the movie theater. He backed into a parking space in place a sun visor across the glass of his windshield. An officer contacted the defendant inside the theater. When the officer identified himself, the defendant said that he was the one.
Tulsa criminal defense attorney Stephen Cale said that the defendant did something that he should never do, and no one should ever do. He waived his rights under Miranda and voluntarily spoke to the officer. The defendant said that he come to the movie theater to meet a 14-year-old girl. Even though the defendant claimed that he did not intend to have sex with the girl, a search of his vehicle revealed a pillow and a blanket in the backseat.
On appeal, the defendant contended that his trial was not conducted in accordance with law because the presiding judge was the same judge presided over the preliminary hearing. However, the defendant failed to assert his right to exclude this judge from presiding at trial. This privilege can be waived by the failure to strictly comply with the proper procedure for seeking disqualification of the trial judge.
The appellate court will only correct plain error if the error seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the judicial proceedings or otherwise represents a miscarriage of justice. Structural errors as opposed to trial errors, affect the conduct of the entire trial and cannot be separated from it for the purposes of analysis. They undermine the fairness of criminal proceedings as a whole. Structural errors are constitutional deprivations affecting the framework within which the trial proceeds rather than an error in the trial process itself.
The US Supreme Court is concluded that most constitutional errors can be harmless. There’s a strong presumption the errors which occur during trial are subject to harmless error analysis as long as a defendant is represented by counsel and is tried by an impartial judge. The US Supreme Court has restricted the use of structural error, with his requirement of automatic reversal, to a limited class of cases. These errors appear to have have in common that the violation of a right granted by the Constitution rather than a violation of the right granted by the state statute. An example is a faulty jury instruction on reasonable doubt.